


let your heart be light

by kingsandthieves



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age II, Dragon Age: Inquisition, Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: A teeny bit of angst, Alternate Universe - Jewish, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Bees, Canon Compliant, Christmas Cookies, Christmas Presents, DECFANFIC, Do You Want to Build a Snowman?, F/F, F/M, Fluff, Holidays, Mistletoe, Multi, Secret Santa, Sledding, Snowball Fight, Winter, angst and fluff are my SHIT, because I LIVE FOR ANGST, can't say i'm surprised though, fuck i can't believe that's a tag, i love how that's an actual tag, i love this site, oh man why am i doing this to myself
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-12-02
Updated: 2015-02-02
Packaged: 2018-02-27 21:01:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 17
Words: 26,304
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2706629
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kingsandthieves/pseuds/kingsandthieves
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>a bunch of short fics for the December Fanfic Challenge, one per day according to the prompts! these are probably all going to be dragon age, some modern au, others not, we'll see! hope you enjoy <3</p><p>also i'm on <a href="http://www.nerdlordtheirin.tumblr.com">tumblr</a></p>
            </blockquote>





	1. ice to meet you

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> day one: ice skating  
> cullen/rhiannon lavellan; modern au  
> also this is a teeny bit late already, i know, but i had a hell of a hard time  
> (also today is my birthday so you should forgive me)

He was twenty minutes late and there were dark circles under his eyes.

Rhiannon skated through the children and couples, families spinning in pendulous circles around the ice rink, enjoying one of the only days winter had to offer that wasn’t utterly miserable. He managed a grin when she zoomed to the rink wall, clinging to it with her teal-gloved fingers.

 “You’re late.”

Cullen grimaced. “I know, I’m sorry, I…”

“Couldn’t find your gloves?”

He looked down at the black leather gloves on his hands. They had faux-fur on the inside and she knew he loved them, they’d been his favorite Christmas present the year before. More and more lately, however, he was prone to losing them. At least, that was the official story.

He nodded. “Ree, I—”

“It’s okay.” She smiled at him. “I picked out a pair of skates for you, they’re over on that bench.” She pointed and he dutifully obliged, ambling off.  

She watched him sit, watched him wince, watched every roll of his muscles beneath the form-fitting sweater and open coat, watched the way he hunched his shoulders and took his time to carefully and precisely tie the laces, his fingers shaking despite the gloves. Every single breath he took was slow and measured, thought out and performed. She bit her lip, watched him stand unsurely and clomp over to the opening of the rink.

He waited patiently for a group of giggling girls to pass, looking at Rhiannon from his place outside the rink. “You remember that time we danced at that diplomat’s dinner party?”

Rhiannon nodded, trying not to smile and failing. “You mean when we _tried_ to dance?”

“Well, I have this feeling that ice skating is going to be like that, just…worse. So much worse.”

“It’s okay, Cullen,” she said, serious for a change. “I happen to be an excellent ice skater and I will hold onto you the entire time. Okay?”

There was that look on his face again, the look he got sometimes, even though they’d been together for _years_. It was disbelief that he had heard her correctly, uncertainty that any of this was even real, but then it broke, dissolving into warmth and wonder and the flicker of belief that he might just actually be worth it. And he was, naturally, but he just couldn’t see it, not the way she could.

Rhiannon held out a hand to him and he took it, squeezing, as she led him onto the ice.

“Don’t look down,” she trilled when she caught him doing it. “Put your weight forward a little, your other arm out in front of you a bit. That’s it!” She laughed, the sound spiraling up in the cold sky.

“This is ridiculous,” he muttered but he gripped her hand a little tighter as they began to turn, circling the rink counter-clockwise with everyone else. “If I should suffer some kind of mortal injury, call my sister.”

She rolled her eyes. “Ha-ha.”

After a few minutes and one turn of the rink, she felt him start to relax. It wasn’t something she saw, really, though she was keeping an eye on him out of the corner of her eye. More it was something she honestly, genuinely _felt_ , stretching across the little bit of distance between them, an energy, a release of whatever tension his body had been holding for him. His fingers were a little looser in hers and his shoulders had fallen slightly, his eyes a little brighter. She turned her head, watched him take a deep breath through his nose and let it out through his lips. There was the faintest curl of a smile there, stretching the scar that sliced through them on the right side of his face.

“You know what I was thinking?” she asked, keeping her voice quiet so any other skaters nearby couldn’t hear. There were squeals and screeches of laughter from kids all across the rink, however, and he hovered in a bit closer to hear her.

“What?”

“You wouldn’t be able to come out with me and do this if you were working.”

He didn’t say anything, looking out across the rink, towards the skyscrapers and clouds, hundreds of windows reflecting the gray, snowy day.  

“And it doesn’t bother me. None of it. I know you think it does, but it doesn’t.”

“I know it doesn’t.”

She went on as though he hadn’t spoken. “You know why it doesn’t bother me? Because even when I ask you to do things with me and you don’t feel like coming out of the apartment, you do anyway. Even if it takes you a while to do it. Even if you…can’t find your gloves.”

He slashed a look of apology at her, a rueful smile on his face. “Should’ve known I can’t get anything past you.”

“Yes, you should’ve.” She turned to look at him, their strides slowing.  “I know you think you should be doing more, but deciding to leave the force, taking time off…It’s the best decision I think you’ve ever made.” She paused for a moment. “Especially after Iraq.”

His hand flexed around hers, an involuntary twitch. Always, _always_ he reacted to just hearing the word, but they had agreed not to sugarcoat, not to close their eyes and pretend that nothing had happened. If it was something they were both going to have to deal with every day, it was something they were going to face, head-on, looking it right in the eyes with or without fear.

“You know something else?”

“Hm?”

“You’re the bravest person I’ve ever met.”

Cullen turned to look at her, his eyebrows raised. She wasn’t sure when they’d stopped moving, but they were standing in the center of the ice, everyone skating around them. It made her dizzy to look, so she kept her eyes on him, her hands on him, her anchor in the wild rush of it all.

“Really?”

Rhiannon nodded, grinning. “Just don’t tell Cassandra I said that. She’s still mad at me for what happened at Thanksgiving.”

“Varric apologized. And it was an accident!”

“So he says. She never believes him. Anyway, somehow that means it’s always _my_ fault. I swear, sometimes she—”

Cullen ducked his head, cutting off what she’d been about to say, pressing his lips to hers. Her eyes widened in surprise, but then they closed as she reached for him, clinging to his coat tightly. He cupped her face, his hands warm, one moving to stroke her dark red hair back from her face.

“And what if I told you,” he said softly when they parted, “that _you_ were the bravest person I’d ever met?”

She reached up with one hand to touch his cheek, feeling the heat of his skin even through her glove. She wanted to erase the circles under his eyes, wanted to smooth away the worry she always saw lingering on his face, wanted to lighten the dark parts of him. He’d been through so much so often in his life. She wanted to make him forget all that, at least for a little while.

“I would _definitely_ tell Cassandra. The look on her face will be top-notch. And that means you get to explain to her why.”

He groaned good-naturedly, standing up straight, one hand loosely holding her waist. “You _would_ do that, wouldn’t you?”

“Well, since you’re so brave and all—”

He kissed her again, interrupting her, and she laughed against his mouth. She didn’t even hear the screams, the scraping of skate blades on ice, didn’t even realize something was amiss, until— _WHAP!_

They broke apart, Rhiannon crying “Oh!” in surprise and Cullen swearing. Cullen’s shoulders were hunched practically around his ears as Rhiannon sputtered, her right side splattered with snow. Cullen’s collar was cradled with snow as well, his mouth hanging open, his entire body wracked with shivers.

“What—”

Rhiannon glanced over towards the side of the rink. Their friends Varric Tethras and Cassandra Pentaghast were standing there, Varric in nothing more than jeans and a thick hoodie unzipped to show off his newest NaNoWriMo t-shirt, his blond hair pulled up into its usual half-ponytail. Cassandra looked austere and beautiful in all black, surprisingly without her badge for once, her coat cut asymmetrically, her boots zipped all the way up to her knees.

Varric was nodding, impressed. “Not bad, Pentaghast. Not bad. But I think I can do better.”

“Don’t you _dare_ ,” Rhiannon yelled, grabbing for Cullen’s hand before Varric could even stoop to gather a handful of snow. She dragged him wildly across the rink, dodging in between kids zooming faster than even she dared and parents watching with worried eyes. They nearly collided with a group of friends who screamed as Rhiannon and Cullen careened away, practically tripping off the rink and finally, blissfully, onto solid ground.

They clung to each other safely on the other side, hearts hammering. Rhiannon reached up to brush the snow out of his coat, glad for the extra inches the skates gave her. His breath hitched when some of it slid down his sweater, melting against his spine, and she committed that sound to memory.

As she was finishing, Cullen suddenly laughed, his nose crinkling, even as his teeth chattered.

“What?” she asked, amazed.

“You have snow in your hair.” He reached out to touch her hair, the strands running through his fingers, snow falling away into his palm. “And the sun’s coming through.”

It was true: The clouds had parted, a rare slash of sunlight falling on the rink and them, turning Cullen’s hair to gold. Rhiannon stared at him glowing in the light, smiling. He smiled back almost shyly, his cheeks pink, and her chest felt as light and warm as the sunshine around them. She was so utterly, completely, _disgustingly_ in love that it probably should have been illegal.

But she was damn glad it wasn’t.   

“Aren’t you happy you joined me today?” she asked, wrapping her arms around his neck.

He tugged gently on a strand of her hair, wrapping it around one finger, grinning widely. “Something like that.”  

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> because modern!varric would totally do nano, imo
> 
> also i have all these cop/detective partners cullen and cassandra & veteran cullen headcanons, blame [turian_agent](http://archiveofourown.org/users/turian_agent/pseuds/turian_agent)


	2. kiss

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> omg i am such garbage, i've fallen behind ALREADY but oh well

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> day two: mistletoe  
> sebastian/f!hawke; canon DA 'verse, set during Act 2 of DA2  
> for [turian_agent](http://archiveofourown.org/users/turian_agent/pseuds/turian_agent)  
> i hope i did your hawke justice!

Satinalia was Edlyn Hawke’s _favorite_ time of year.

The streets of Hightown were crowded when she left her estate, people gathered en masse for the feasting and festivities. Fires were burning in shining braziers, people wearing furs and silks dancing in circles, filling goblets and bottles from the enormous casks stacked about, drinking and eating as best as they could around the brilliantly painted masks they wore. It was like being in Orlais, Edlyn imagined, though she’d never been before. She smiled as a group of shrieking, laughing children ran past, their masks trailing ribbons and damask flowers. It reminded her all too much of her and the twins when they were children.

Her chest panged when she thought of Bethany, the thrill of the holiday dimming somewhat. Satinalia had always been her younger sister's favorite holiday, too. She loved the music but especially the lights and the dancing. Bethany was probably an enormous part of why Edlyn loved it so much; Carver as well, even with his little tantrums every year. Everywhere she looked, there were people laughing and singing, smiling and enjoying themselves. The air smelled of roasted chestnuts and cinnamon rather than its usual stench, and the crisp air made her breathe deeper, reminded her of the afternoons in Lothering when the sun would set early and the stars would twinkle out in the dusk. Everything was more beautiful around Satinalia, filled with an almost…child-like wonder, even as she’d gotten older. The holiday hadn’t always been happy in the years of late, but there was always time to change that, to make it better.

There were stalls set up along the streets and in the squares, hawkers calling out for people in need of masks as Edlyn walked past. One in particular caught her eye and she reached for it without meaning to. It was a shining, icy blue covered in silver filigree; she ran her fingers over it reverently. It was a frivolous thing and yet she found herself wanting it.

“Fancy that one, milady?” The salesman, a heavily tattooed dwarf, looped it off its hook, holding it out to her. “Try it!”

Edlyn started to protest, but it was just so beautiful, she couldn’t help herself. She held it up to her face, peering down into the oval hand mirror he flipped up in her direction. It _was_ utterly beautiful, especially with her blonde curls—and so what if it was a frivolous purchase? She had restored her family’s nobility, there was money to spare, and it was Satinalia. Why not?

She paid the few silver for it and tied it back with its black ribbon, being careful not to entangle it with her hair.

She was about to walk away when she caught sight of a sprig of green hanging there, tied to the side of the stall with a bit of extra ribbon. Edlyn frowned, pointing to it. “Is that—”

“Fereldan mistletoe?” The dwarf nodded. “Sure is. That’s where I’m from. My daughter’s superstitious, believes that it brings luck. She insisted I take it.”

“Superstitious, huh?” She thought of some tale she’d heard back in Lothering when she was an adolescent, dreaming of far off places that she could walk _freely_ , without her father constantly monitoring her and her magic. Mistletoe was a symbol of love during Satinalia back in Ferelden and all those who found themselves beneath it were meant to kiss.

Slowly, Edlyn smiled. She had an idea.

“Have you got any more?”

Fifteen minutes later, she wound her way through the crowd up the stone steps to the Chantry, careful to avoid stepping on any of the revelers lost in the throes of their joy. Even it was decorated for the festivities with gilded banners and sticks of burning incense, but at least it was quiet inside, the doors shutting solidly behind Edlyn, the swell of sound outside effectively dulled.

Inside the Chantry was soft and warm, all murmured prayers and hushed benedictions. Somewhere, a choir of children was singing; Edlyn could just make out the Chant of Light in their sweet voices, high and clear as the morning bells.

She stepped carefully around red candles, wax spilling from their warm centers, her fine leather boots quiet on the stone floor. Her footsteps softened on the red carpet that lined the steps and she walked up, eyes searching for a familiar tall build, the glint of that white armor.

Her breath caught when she saw him, leaning against the railing before the massive statue of Andraste, an armada of candles burning at her feet, wax spilled across her bronze boots. He was reading, engrossed in a book—it was no doubt the Chant of Light, or some kind of study on the Maker and His Holy Bride—whatever it was, she took a moment to stop and admire him.

He was idly running a hand over his auburn hair, pushing it back from his face as he read. Every now and again he would bite his lip, as if he was unsure over what he was reading. His white and gold armor reflected the flames of dozens of candles, shimmering brilliantly in contrast with his tanned skin, so much so that she was stunned, stopped in place by the _light_ of him.

Sebastian Vael. He was the Prince of Starkhaven and undoubtedly the most pious man she’d ever met. It was such a strange thing, the most unbelievable of all, despite everything she had faced and been through. Re-elevating her family to its once-noble status, _that_ she might have been able to predict, to foresee thanks to her friendship with Varric and the amount of work she’d had to do to pull it off. But to fall in love with a man who was, for all intents and purposes, of the cloth—and she a mage? It was almost too ridiculous to even comprehend.

And yet, here she was, clutching a handful of mistletoe bound with a ribbon, heart beating wildly in her chest. _I can’t believe I’m about to do this_.

She stood before the statue of Andraste. Sebastian hadn’t looked up yet. She knelt, whispering a quick prayer. Though she was a mage and not exactly the most religious, it seemed the right thing to do. She rubbed her thumb over the mistletoe, feeling comforted, at least a little. She took a deep breath.

Edlyn rose to her feet and turned around. Sebastian was still completely involved in the book, unaware of her presence. Slowly, she walked over to him.

“Excuse me.”

He started, looking up. He squinted, his eyes looking tired, and no wonder; it was dim in the Chantry. He ought to have been reading at a desk where the light was better, but far be it from him to stray from Andraste’s sight.

“Erm, yes. I’m sorry, can I help you?” That damned brogue of his made her weak in the knees every time.

“You’re a brother here with the Chantry, is that right?”

He opened his mouth to reply before he frowned, a slight smile playing on his lips. “Wait. Edlyn, is that you?”

She grinned. “Remarkable what a mask can do, isn’t it?”

He laughed, shutting his book with a snap. “I almost didn’t recognize you!” He reached out a hand and something fluttered in Edlyn’s stomach. “Except for your hair, I’d know that. And your lips.”

There was a brief silence as he realized what he’d just said and he snatched his hand back as though she might burn him. “I mean—not that I take particular _notice_ of them, you understand. I—I just—”

“I understand, Sebastian.” Her heartbeat was so loud in her ears that she could hardly hear him; she needed to change the subject and quickly. She nodded her head towards the Chantry doors down the stairs. “You’re not in a celebrating mood?”

“Me? Uh, no.” He cleared his throat. “As someone trying to stay away from vices, I imagine it wouldn’t be a good idea for me to venture out into—that.”

“Well, I’m glad I came in here, then.” She looked down, not sure she’d be able to handle his reaction to her saying that. She rubbed her thumbs over the mistletoe again, as if for good luck. “You know the tradition of gift-giving for Satinalia?”

Sebastian nodded. “We do it in Starkhaven. I think they do it in Val Royeaux as well. It’s considered a tradition of the particularly pious, but I think…” She looked up in time to see a blush darkening his cheeks. “Well, I think gift-giving at this time of year is a fine tradition for anyone to take part in. Especially when the gifts are meaningful.”

“My family didn’t do it back in Lothering, but since I'm an honorary Marcher now: Here.” She handed him the mistletoe. “I saw this and thought of you.”

He took the sprig gently from her hand, their fingers brushing. He frowned slightly. “Mistletoe?”

“Yes, it’s supposed to have certain properties. It’s just a superstition, really, but—”

“What are they?”

Edlyn shrugged, looking up at him slowly. “Healing, luck, protection…” She trailed off.

“And? Something else?”

There was an expectant pause before Edlyn mustered up the courage to say it, her voice hardly rising above a murmur. “Love.”

Their eyes met, his a brilliant blue, like the ocean in summer. She was certain she was blushing as badly as him in that moment, cursing herself for a fool; how had she allowed those words to actually come out of her mouth? Surely he was about to let her down gently, about to remind her of his vow to the Chantry which she already knew about, putting them into this terribly awkward position—how could she have been so _stupid_ —

“I, erm.” Sebastian coughed. “I’m afraid I haven’t got anything for you. Not yet. That is, if—if you want something.” 

Her idea from the Hightown market came back to her and she bit her lip. “I might have a solution for that. There _is_ something I want, incidentally.”

“Oh?”

“Here.” Gently, she pushed his arm up, so he was holding the mistletoe over them.

He looked up at it, vaguely confused. “All right, now—?” He looked down at her.

Edlyn raised herself on her tiptoes and cupped his face, bringing him down just enough for their lips to meet. He was shocked momentarily, stunned beneath her hands, but then she felt him melt just a little bit beneath her, enough so that his free hand rested on her waist, not gripping, but touching hesitantly, exploringly, their bodies meeting there in a soft touch, trading warmth and presence. It sent tingles racing up her spine.

She pulled back, resting on the balls of her feet again. “There.”

She had lost so much in the past few years and she regretted not speaking up when she'd had the chance, keeping things hidden away rather than letting them see the light. She'd lost her sister because of it and since then, her focus had been entirely on her family and doing right by them, protecting them always. Why shouldn't she want something for herself for once? This was a chance at something—something beautiful, maybe—and she might never get another opportunity like this. She wanted to do something for once instead of think on it later, wishing she'd said something about how she really felt. There would be time for apologies and regrets later, but now she wanted to be  _bold_. 

“You—” Sebastian opened his eyes, peering at her with a half-lidded gaze as he licked his lips ever so slowly, tortuously, as if missing the taste of her. She hoped that was the case. “Was—erm, that was your gift from me?”

She nodded, looking around anxiously then. She hadn’t even thought to make sure no one was looking, her head spinning madly. “If you don’t mind.”

“No, no, I just…” He pulled the mistletoe back down, looking at it in the faint light. “Why mistletoe?”

Edlyn grinned. “We Fereldans have some traditions of our own.”

Sebastian smiled back, cradling the mistletoe gently in his cupped palm. His other hand still rested on her waist and she wanted to curl into his warmth and feel his breath upon her hair.

“I’m starting to see that,” he said wryly. “Uh, if I may?”

She nodded. “Please.”

“Would it be too forward of me to ask for that gift back?”

“You want it _back_?” Edlyn laughed, drawing vaguely disapproving looks of several passing lay sisters from the floor below. She brought her hand up to her mouth, covering her lips with her fingers, as if that would drown out the sound. “You can’t have a gift back,” she whispered. Her head felt woozy and she wanted to laugh even louder, the sound carrying to the rafters and bells, to the very heights of the Chantry with adoring delirium, until the Maker himself heard her. She felt half-hysteric, her heart beating so fast it was nearly light. 

He almost looked disappointed. “No?”

“No. But...I suppose I can give you a second gift.”

“Well, in that case…” Sebastian lifted his hand from her waist and brought it around to the back of her head, pulling at the ribbon holding her mask in place. It fell into her waiting hands. "What I want is to see your face.” He looked down at the floor shyly, scuffing his boot on the stone. "No one as beautiful as you should hide their face." Taking a breath, he looked up, meeting her eyes. "Not even to celebrate the moon."

For a moment, she was so stunned, she almost forgot to answer. When she spoke, her voice was breathless, hardly even a whisper. “Does that mean I get a second gift, too?”

Sebastian looked unsure of himself for just a moment, glancing over his shoulder. The lay sisters had moved away, walking to the rooms at the front of Chantry near the doors, and nobody was around that could see them. Finally, he turned back to her, lips curled up in the faintest hint of a smile. “I suppose it does.”

“I think I know what I want, then.”

This time, when she stood on her tiptoes, he wrapped his arms around her and kissed her back just as enthusiastically, both of them forgetting about the mistletoe entirely, the mask falling from her hand to the floor. It was gift-giving, nothing more; at least, not yet. They had plenty of time to figure all that out after the holidays. For now, however, Edlyn was content to be this close to him, happy just to have the taste of him on her lips, his mouth opening for her in a rush of warm breath as he ran his fingers through her curls.

She left several minutes later, humming a traditional Satinalia song, her pocket empty of mistletoe. He had kept it with him, tucked into the pages of his book. It had been a gift, after all—and one simply doesn't give gifts back. 

She hadn't realized she'd wandered all the way to Lowtown, lost in her song, until she caught sight of Varric and Isabela in the crowd outside the Hanged Man, Isabela breathless with laughter, wearing a black pirate hat mask with an enormous jaunty feather, and Varric holding a tankard of what looked like the spiced ale they were serving for the holiday, his mask pure shining gold. They waved her over and she went happily, feeling in her pocket for the lovely, lucky mask she'd bought. She decided to leave it there. It was a tradition, certainly, but one could always make new traditions. 

 _Note to self,_  she thought, joining her friends, smiling widely. _Mistletoe_   not _required to kiss in the Chantry—but definitely fun to bring it along anyway._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> here's hoping i did satinalia all right, i wish there was more info on theodosian holidays because i want to know ALL THE THINGS


	3. bring your cheer

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> will i ever not be playing catch-up (so far, no)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> day three: watching holiday specials  
> blackwall/sorcha trevelyan; modern au

“Okay, look, I value your opinion but _How the Grinch Stole Christmas_ is way more of a classic than _The Muppet Christmas Carol_.”

Blackwall folded his arms over his chest, raising an eyebrow. He was leaning against the sink and Sorcha liked the picture of him framed by the light falling in through the kitchen window. He was wearing a red flannel shirt, the sleeves rolled up over his muscular arms, his jeans loose and comfortable. He’d pulled his dark hair back into a half-ponytail, some stray strands hanging around his face in soft disarray. She wanted to touch them, to run her hands over his hair, but she also didn’t want to lose this discussion by letting him kiss the sense out of her. 

“Sorcha, I love you, but you’re wrong.” He frowned. “And you’re too young to know what a classic is.”

Sorcha laughed. “Okay, first of all, that argument stopped being relevant years ago. Secondly, you’re just mad because I’m _right_. What’s more classic than Boris Karloff?”

“Okay.” Blackwall pushed off the counter and crossed the small kitchen to where she was standing in front of the refrigerator, until there were only inches separating them. “We’ll do _How the Grinch Stole Christmas_ , but you’re going to regret this in the morning.”

Impossible. How could she regret this? She’d won! She smiled, pecking him on the cheek and turning away, but before she could get far, he had a hand around her wrist and was pulling her back to kiss her on the lips. His beard tickled and she smiled against him, wrapping her arms around him and burying her face in the crook of his neck. He was warm and smelled like the holidays: Peppermint and cinnamon and pine, all rolled into one.

“Are you okay with this?” Blackwall murmured, his voice rumbling through Sorcha.

She nodded against his shoulder. “Of course. Varric will be back from his book tour tomorrow. It’s just one night and I love spending time with him.” She paused, looking up at him. “Are you?”

Blackwall smiled quickly. “Of course. The kid’s weird, but he’s our kind of weird. Wouldn’t trade it for anything.”

“Good.” She patted his broad chest with one hand. “Then you get to go tell him which Christmas movie we’re watching.”

Blackwall sighed but did as she said, leaving the kitchen. Sorcha, meanwhile, peered into the freezer. She had no idea how to bake whatsoever, but she had gone ahead and bought the most vital of all Christmas supplies: the Pillsbury sugar cookies stamped with Christmas trees. She would’ve bought the reindeer and snowman ones as well, but the last Christmas when Cole had been over, he’d complained that they were watching him, so she had decided not to this year.

She ripped open the package and put the little round bits of dough on a cookie sheet, sliding it into the oven. There. Baking accomplished. She dusted her hands off on her jeans and went into the sitting room where Blackwall was setting up the movie.

“Everyone talks in rhyme?” Cole was asking. He was wearing the floppy hat he’d always had, its brim hanging low over his face. She’d grown used to talking to him that way, not always seeing his face. He was wearing a knitted sweater that was far too large for him, the sleeves hanging past his hands. He was wearing a pair of flannel pants as well, and slippers that Sorcha was sure Cassandra had given him sometime last year. 

Sorcha nodded as she sat down next to him on the couch, not too close, the way he liked. He was still holding the Rubik’s cube she had given him. He wasn’t solving it, just holding it. That was fine. That was why she’d given it to him; it was his to do with what he saw fit.

“Yep. The whole thing is a rhyme.”

“I like rhymes.”

“Good! Me too.” Sorcha smiled particularly brightly at Blackwall, who rolled his eyes from his place near the TV stand. He was going to grumble about this all evening if she let him. “You want some cookies? They’re in the oven.”

Cole nodded. “The cookies have trees on them.”

“Yeah. I thought you’d like them.”

“Do the lights on the trees sparkle?”

“Nope, but we can turn the lights on our tree on. Do you want to do that?”

Cole nodded again, his hat brim bowing with the movement. “Varric always has the lights on.”

“I bet he does. Do you know if he’s bringing you back anything tomorrow?”

“I’m…not sure. I’ve been reading his new book, but I get tired a lot.”

“Me too. Naps are an essential part of reading, though, I'm sure he'll understand.” Sorcha got up from the couch, going to the Christmas tree to plug the lights in. They flickered at first before brightening, coming to life in multi-colored sparkles among the fragrant branches of the tree that Blackwall had cut for them just the day before. Half of it had been missing ornaments until Cole came over; she’d done that on purpose once Varric had asked if they could watch him for a day since his flight back was delayed. She thought he’d like putting them on and he did; there was a pattern to it and he’d organized them all by color, starting at the top of the tree where he’d put the fake stuffed raven that Leliana had given them as a gag gift. “It wants to be an angel, too,” he’d said and Sorcha had left it with a smile.

The timer on the oven beeped at her a minute later and she pulled the cookies out of the oven, plating them just in time for the movie to start. It wasn’t even a movie, not really, no more than half an hour, really, but it was important to her. She’d grown up watching it with her siblings and it had been one of the only times that her family could agree on anything; it brought back a lot of memories. She glanced at Cole out of the corner of her eye, watching as he held a cookie, not eating it, too busy watching the screen with rapt fascination. Blackwall settled in next to her, her feet curled up and her head on his shoulder, the three of them sharing a cashmere blanket that Dorian had sent from Europe. This, she thought, was the perfect holiday tradition. 

Only when Cole wanted to watch it for the fourth time did Sorcha think maybe Blackwall had been right. _Maybe_.

She didn’t admit it until later that night, when Cole was in the guest room, reciting it word for word. Sorcha knew that was what he was doing because she could hear him plaintively through the wall, one arm thrown over her face. The clock read 12:14 AM the last time she’d looked.

“Okay,” she whispered half an hour later, when he’d gone through it again. “Maybe you were right.”

Blackwall rolled over, squinting at her. Somehow, he’d been able to manage sleep. Typical. “What?”

“You were right. I regret this.”

He chuckled, gathering her up in his arms and holding her, smoothing her dark brown hair back from her face. “Should’ve gone with the Muppets.”

“Yeah. Lesson learned.”

The next day, Varric came to get him, looking jetlagged but happy. They chatted about his book tour and the cities he’d been to before Cole came out of the guest room. He’d solved the Rubik’s cube; he handed it to Sorcha and she smiled at it. She hadn’t really slept at all, but she loved that kid, she really did.

“Heya kid,” Varric said, touching Cole’s shoulder lightly with just two fingers. “How’d it go?”

“I like Christmas here.” He looked back at the tree. “I like the lights.”

“Me too." Varric looked at Sorcha and Blackwall, grinning as if he knew. Knowing him, he probably did. "Hey, thanks again, you two. Give me a call, okay?”

Cole tipped his head up at Sorcha before they left, smiling slightly. “‘Maybe Christmas, he thought, doesn’t come from a store. Maybe Christmas, perhaps, means a little bit more!”

Sorcha laughed as she held the door open. “Bye, Cole.”

“Bye.”

“Don’t forget about the Christmas party on the seventeenth, Varric!”

Varric waved one hand back at them in answer. Sorcha and Blackwall watched them go, Cole kicking at tufts of snow that had spilled onto the sidewalk, his mouth hidden by a dark green scarf. They disappeared around a row of snowy hedges and were gone.

“I love that kid,” she said, sighing as she shut the door.

“Me too,” Blackwall said. “But I can’t watch _How the Grinch Stole Christmas_ one more time. In fact, I don’t even want to watch _The_ _Muppet Christmas Carol_ anymore.”

“Really?” Sorcha grinned teasingly. “Never thought I’d see the day.”

“Mark it on the calendar.” He wrapped an arm around her shoulders, steering her away from the door. “How about we watch something else?”

“Great idea.” She kissed him softly, smiling. “This time, you pick.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> blackwall is my burly man candy and cole is my tiny son  
> also the muppet christmas carol is my LIFE


	4. snowfalls

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> day four: snowball fight  
> blackwall/sorcha trevelyan; canon inquisition 'verse

To nobody’s surprise, Sera started it.

Sorcha wasn’t daydreaming so much as she was preoccupied, walking across the battlements from Cullen’s tower to the main keep of Skyhold. Now that everyone had settled in, there were mountains for her to move. Her advisors were helping her make sense of it all, and Cassandra too was invaluable, but it felt like every time she checked something off the to-do list, twenty more things popped up for her to tackle. It was bedlam.

She was just worrying over rations and blankets for everyone displaced by the Inquisition’s efforts—and enemies—when there was a whistling from down below. Instinct made her turn away, thinking it was an arrow, that she was under attack, only to see a snowball go blazing past. There were shouted curses from down below and she peered over the edge, scowling.

Sera and Dorian, both of them wrapped up against the newly-fallen snow, were down in the courtyard. Sera was bent over, already re-forming more ammunition, while Dorian waved up at Sorcha happily. A breeze tugged playfully at his hair, making it look artfully disheveled. “Hello, Inquisitor! Out for a brisk morning stroll?”

“Snow _not_ included, if you please,” she yelled down.

“Oh, _pish_ , that’s no fun!” Sera cupped her hands around her mouth to amplify her voice. “You can’t be all Inquisition all the time, you know!”

“You can when you’re the Inquisitor!”

“So stop being her for half a mo’ and get _down here_.”

“You know, she does have a point,” Dorian drawled. “If you don’t take time for yourself every now and again, we might just lose you completely. Even _Cullen_ manages time for me to beat him at chess.”

Sorcha rolled her eyes. That was true; if even Cullen, who was always up to his eyes in reports and training schedules, managed to take a few minutes out of the day for something frivolous, then she certainly could too. Taking a deep breath, she held up a hand and disappeared into the keep to the sound of Sera and Dorian clapping and cheering.

When she arrived in the courtyard, it was to battle lines being clearly drawn. Sera and Dorian appeared to be on one side, the Iron Bull and Krem on the other. They’d erected some form of cover in snow drifts piled high across from each other and in a third corner, near the stairs, Blackwall was helping Cole build his own little fort out of snow. Some of it had fallen onto the brim of Cole’s hat, weighing it down even further over his face.

“There you go,” Blackwall said, standing up and brushing snow off his knees. “You’re a proper builder, you are.”

When he caught sight of Sorcha, he smiled and wandered over. “Got pulled in as well, huh?” He gestured to Cole. “He looked like he wanted to join in but wasn’t sure how.”

“Is he part of it?”

Blackwall shook his head. “I told them if any of them hit him with anything, I’m going to hit them with my fists.”

Sorcha laughed. “I appreciate that.” Cole was…odd, granted, but she looked on him like he was her younger brother. He was quite capable of defending himself, as he had proven the last time they’d ventured out of Skyhold together, but there was a protective streak in Sorcha that ran far deeper than anything.

She glanced at Blackwall out of the corner of her eye, feeling that familiar twisting in her stomach. Of all the unexpected things—waking up with that mark on her hand, becoming the Inquisitor—her feelings for Blackwall were perhaps at the top of the list. She’d never dreamed that in the midst of what one could veritably call a war, she would find someone to capture her interest in a way that was…more than friendly. Dorian would never let her forget it, and even now, she regretted telling him whenever he sauntered over with that smirk and that tone whenever he said, “ _Sooooo, how’s Blackwall_?” Of course, he didn’t know that they’d agreed to maintain a friendly relationship in the face of everything, that they’d both come to the conclusion that it was for the best—whether Sorcha believed that or not, she still wasn’t sure.

“So, um.” Sorcha gestured to where Cole was sitting in the middle of his own fortification, looking up at the sky and trying to see his breath. “Your snow-building skills are impressive.”

His lips twisted into a wry smile. “Thank you, my lady. You’re too kind.”

Across the courtyard—the _battlefield_ —Sera took a snowball right in the face and howled, jumping around and shaking snow out of her eyes. The Iron Bull was breathless with laughter and Krem scowled at him, dumping more snowballs into his hands.

Sorcha took a deep breath. “Blackwall, I—”

“Hey!” The Iron Bull shouted. Sorcha turned to look. “Boss, are you going to jump in here or what?”

“As what? A mediator?”

He laughed loudly. “Fuck that.” He stood up behind their defenses, spreading his arms wide. “Pick a side!”

“But then it’ll be uneven!”

“Blackwall’s here, innit he?” Sera said, trying to do a quick handstand in the snow; she fell backwards with an _“oof!”_

Sorcha looked at Blackwall. He was looking back at her, his eyebrows raised slightly, blue eyes glimmering playfully. He was endlessly surprising to her; he seemed as though he might be the most serious of them all, but then he’d joke with Sera in the tavern or trade stories back and forth with Varric, laughing out loud, his eyes crinkling at the corners, and she’d get a glimpse of who he really was, maybe who he had been in his youth, perhaps when he was around her age and less weighted by the burdens of the world, and she was delighted by him all over again.

 “Well?” He smiled slowly, bowing slightly. “Shall we, my lady?”

If they couldn’t be together, they could at least still have _some_ fun, right?

Sorcha tucked a chunk of hair behind one ear. “You do realize we’ll be on opposite sides of this… battle?”

“Yes, I’m aware.” He stood up straight. “I suppose we’ll just have to lose with grace.”

Sorcha grinned. “Good answer.” Turning her gaze to the courtyard, she yelled to Bull, “I’ll join you!”

The Iron Bull chuckled to himself, rubbing his hands together. “We’ll _crush_ them,” he said gleefully.

An hour, two destroyed snow banks later, and an accidental black eye given to Sorcha thanks to Dorian cheating and using magic to enhance the speed of his snowballs, Sorcha’s group had won. Blackwall, Sera, and Dorian knelt before the three of them and Sorcha accepted their defeat with a solemn face. She shrieked a moment later when The Iron Bull picked her up and spun her around, grabbing Krem around the waist as well with his free arm.

She laughed, her head spinning dizzily when he planted her solidly back on her feet once more. Krem was blushing, straightening his hair. He punched the Iron Bull in the arm and the two of them started laughing and jokingly shoving each other back and forth. Sorcha just narrowly avoided being pulled into it, ducking out of the way.  

“Well, that’s just—that’s not fair!” Sera said, standing and stomping her foot.

“I’m like to agree,” Dorian said, brushing the snow from his legs. He looked at Sorcha’s face, grinning at her. “Though I daresay we landed a few good hits.”

Sorcha rolled her eyes at him. “Lucky shot.”

“ _Magical_ shot, I’d say.”

“You cheated.”

“Now, now, Inquisitor. Pettiness is hardly an attractive trait.”

“Neither is being a sore loser.”

He clutched his chest, blinking at her. “Ow. And here I thought I would make it out of this unscathed.” Dorian frowned at the sight of Blackwall then. “And you! Don’t think I don’t know you were holding back so as not to wound fair lady.”

Blackwall scowled. “What’re you on about?”

“You and our Inquisitor here. Don’t think we don’t know, Blackwall. She and I are very close, you see, and—”

While he was talking, Blackwall stooped, grabbing a handful of snow. He threw all of it in Dorian’s face, who broke off with a yelp. Sera laughed out loud and, apparently deciding the battle wasn’t over, leaped on Dorian from the side, tackling him down to the ground.

Dorian screeched, yelling about betrayal as he desperately tried to fight off Sera’s efforts to smear snow into his hair and all over his face. Krem and the Iron Bull intervened, trying to pull the two of them apart, but one of Sera’s wild kicks hit Bull in the face, and then all four of them were wrestling around on the ground.

They were making so much noise that Vivienne poked her head out, standing on the balcony overlooking the courtyard, looking down at them severely. “What is going on out here? You are making entirely too much noise, I—” She shrieked as Sera and the Iron Bull sent a volley of snow up towards her, splattering the balcony. She cursed something at them and a handful of icicles fell from beneath the balcony, slamming down into the ground below like swords. With a smirk, Vivienne vanished back inside, slamming the door shut. Sera cheered, doing messy cartwheels around the icicles, trying to pull one of them from the ground.

A hand closed on Sorcha’s elbow; she turned to see Blackwall standing there. His cheeks were red, snow dusting his dark hair and beard. She touched his hand subconsciously, not even aware she’d done it until warmth flooded her fingertips.

“That was quite a victory,” he said.

“Thank you. It was hard-fought, I must admit. Sera has a wicked arm. Dorian, too, when he’s cheating.” She smiled wryly. “And I noticed you got me once or twice there.”

“Well, I had to make it fair, didn’t I? I wouldn’t insult you by holding back in any regard.”

“Thank you, I appreciate that.”

Blackwall gestured for her to come closer. “Right, let me look at that eye.” Gently, he touched her jaw, tipping her head back to see the bruise in the light.

“It’s astonishing what a ball of tightly packed snow can do it, isn’t it?” She wasn’t even sure what she was saying, only that words were coming out of her mouth in the hopes of making this seem like anything else, just another afternoon, even though her heart was beating so loud she could hear it in her ears and it felt like _anything but_ a regular afternoon. “By the way, I, erm. I didn’t say anything.”

Blackwall’s hands paused. “Didn’t say anything about what?”

“To Dorian. He guessed. About…us.”

Blackwall nodded, his face unreadable. “I guess I haven’t exactly been secretive about my feelings for you.”

She gave him a half-smile. “Nor I.” She hissed as he prodded at the bruise and he took his hand away instantly.

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay. I—” The snow beneath their feet suddenly turned to ice and her feet went out from under her. Blackwall grabbed for her, trying to catch her, but he went down as well beneath wildly grasping hands and they collapsed into Cole’s snow fort. He was nowhere to be seen.

There was a round of laughter from several feet away and Sorcha raised her head, scowling. “Dorian! You—”

She could hear his laughter as he flounced away. “Love you, darling!”

“I swear,” Blackwall said from beside her, his hands wrapped around her forearms, “if you don’t kill him, I will.”

“You’ll have to get in line, trust me.”

She tried to sit up on her elbow, but Blackwall rolled so he was laying partially on top of her. She stopped short, easing back down. Dorian’s motives might have been suspect, but he had at least achieved something Sorcha _had_ been wanting: her and Blackwall alone, for at least a moment. Though they’d crashed through half of Cole’s snow fort, half of it still remained, the snow packed in an arch over their heads, like they were truly separated, safe and sound away from their comrades, hidden from all sight and thought. Though it was freezing in there surrounded by all that snow, all Sorcha felt under Blackwall’s intense gaze was blessedly warm.

He brushed her dark brown hair back from her face, his fingers lightly skating over the bruise on her eye. She winced slightly, but didn’t pull away.

“I thought we weren’t doing this anymore,” Sorcha said. “I thought it was better if we—”

Blackwall leaned down, kissing her deeply, cutting off whatever she’d been about to say and effectively pushing it out of her mind entirely. She wrapped her arms around him, pulling him closer against her, ignoring the cold of the snow beneath her back and the shivering moving through her, focusing only on the heat of him and his lips on hers.

All at once, the roof of the fort caved in, burying Blackwall and Sorcha in a blanket of frigid snow. Sorcha gasped, swallowing a mouthful of it as Blackwall snarled, pulling her out of it in a burst of flurries and white, the two of them rolling wildly, her eyes squeezed shut. She sat up a second later when they were out of it, spitting out snow. From beside her, Blackwall was growling, shaking snow out of his hair and beard.

Sorcha hugged herself, trembling so fiercely now that she could hardly stand it. “What the—”

“The eye needs cold,” Cole said, suddenly sitting beside Sorcha in the snow. She jumped. “It needs cold to numb the hurt.”

Sorcha let out a shaking laugh, her teeth chattering. “Thanks, Cole. I’m glad y-you’re looking out for me.”

Blackwall reached for Sorcha with a hand, helping her to her feet. “Are you all right?”

“Just cold,” she said, nodding.

He ran his hands up her arms, warming them, getting the blood rushing back into her skin. She was feeling a little bit better, but tired and in dire need of a hot bath, when footsteps approached from nearby, crunching through the snow.

Cullen was standing there, looking at the mess they’d made of the courtyard: The battered snow banks, the icicles, the snowballs and kicked up tufts. They must truly have been making a lot of noise if it was enough to draw his attention from his many reports and out of his tower.

“What in the name of the Maker—?”

A single snowball—thrown by who, Sorcha didn’t know—went flying at him. He raised an arm in time to defend himself, the snow breaking apart into powder on his armor. “Now, listen—”

Snowballs came flying at him from all sides. He glared, holding up his clipboard to shield his face. “The Inquisitor will hear about this, mark my words!”

Sorcha ducked down against Blackwall, hiding from Cullen’s sight as he retreated back to his tower, shaking snow off his fur coat. He was going to be very shocked when he learned she had been out there, part of the mayhem and wild laughter beneath the open winter sky. It was frivolous, sure, but sometimes that was she—what _all_ of them—needed. 

She buried her face in Blackwall’s chest, shaking again.

“My lady? Are you sure you're all right?”

She nodded, leaning back, a peal of laughter leaving her lips. “I love Skyhold,” she managed and this time, when Blackwall kissed her, nobody dared interrupt them.


	5. bitter coldy-cold

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> slowly catching up....slooooowly

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> day five: overly bundled up for the weather  
> alistair/aine cousland; DA:O canon, before orzammar

The minute Aine left her tent that morning, Morrigan burst into derisive laughter. Wynne looked over at the sound, rolling her tent up and tying it securely. She laughed merrily as well, shaking her head with a bemused expression on her face.

Wynne stood, her breath frosting in the air when she said, “Aine, why are you dressed like that?”

Aine glared at them both from inside her enormous thick coat, a fur cloak pulled up over her head to block out the cold. The only bit of her skin that was visible was her face. “It’s f-freezing.”

A light snow had begun to fall in the Frostback Mountains, but Aine knew by nightfall, when they would stop to camp again on the way to Orzammar, the mountains would be blanketed with snow the same way they’d been the night before. Aine was from Highever, a coastal city of north Ferelden, and it had never snowed there in all her memories, in any of the history lessons Brother Aldous had told her back in her childhood. To say she was unused to such extreme weather was an understatement.

“Oh,” Morrigan said, wiping an imaginary tear from her eye. “Now this _is_ precious. The great Grey Warden meant to stop the Blight from overtaking all of Thedas is perturbed by a bit of cold?” She wore nothing more than a thin cloak over her bare shoulders, a hood pulled up over her dark hair, appearing utterly unbothered and _fine_. Aine wanted to hit her. Just a bit.

“H-how are you not cold?” she demanded.

Morrigan laughed again. “I? Do you not recall my upbringing? I am quite used to the chill of the open sky. ’Tis nothing more than another state of being.”

“Well it’s t-terrible.” Aine pulled the fur tighter around her, shivering still. “What’s your excuse, Wynne?”

“Me?” Wynne looked at Morrigan, shrugging. “I’m a mage. I know quite a few warming spells.”

“Would you mind _sharing_ them, maybe?”

“Why undo your…” Wynne coughed delicately, “exquisite fashion?”

Aine was muttering under her breath when Alistair came out of her tent behind her. At first, his eyes went wide, glancing between Morrigan and Wynne, his cheeks reddening as though he’d been caught in the act of some wrongdoing—but that was ridiculous, because _everyone_ knew they were sleeping together. Everyone. Even her siblings were asking her about him in the few letters they managed to exchange. When he realized they were not there to criticize him, however, he relaxed somewhat. 

“Good morning, Alistair,” Wynne said warmly. Morrigan rolled her eyes at him and made a _tch_ sound. She didn’t quite understand Aine’s affection for him, though she had given up vocalizing her complaints about it—for now.

“Morning! I—” He broke off when he saw Aine, laughing out loud before clamping a quick hand over his mouth. He coughed, clearing his throat, lowering his hand. “Um. You look…prepared.”

Aine glared at him. “Shut up. Shut up right now.”

He held up his hands, stifling more laughter by biting his lip. “Shutting up at once.”

Aine tried to help Alistair pack up their tent, but it was difficult when she was shaking so badly. She eventually gave up, brushing the snow off a log and sitting on it, drawing her knees up to her chest. Leliana joined them a few minutes later from the surrounding woods, also wearing a light cloak with a hood and a scarf wrapped around her neck. She was carrying two rabbits but when she saw Aine, she dropped them and erupted into a giggling fit that only a snowball could solve—at least, that was Aine’s reasoning for grabbing a handful of snow that had gathered and throwing it at her. Morrigan laughed again when it hit Leliana in the arm, but it just made Aine’s hands even colder and she regretted it instantly.

“Now, now,” Wynne said sternly. “You’re all being children. We should have been packed and ready to go already.” She looked at the other two tents. 

“Oh, really?” Morrigan glanced up from her clothes. “Did you inform the weather of this fact?”

“No, I hadn’t quite gotten the chance,” Wynne replied witheringly and Morrigan actually flashed her half a smile of approval before they returned to their work. "And will someone wake Zevran and Sten? This is ridiculous."

“I’m sorry to laugh,” Leliana said as she picked up her rabbits, still smiling at Aine. “But you just look so cute all bundled up like that!”

Aine scowled at Leliana, pulling her cloak around her more tightly, hunkering down as a brisk gust of wind swept through their camp.

No more than a few minutes later, as they were finishing loading up their horses gathered by a tree and Leliana was struggling to build a fire for breakfast with their damp wood supply, Wynne said, “Oh for goodness’ sake, not you too!”

Aine turned at the same time as everyone else. Zevran was standing there having finally emerged from his tent, bundled up in what looked like every piece of clothing he owned, his blanket wrapped around his head and shoulders. His nose was bright red and he sniffled as he looked at them.

He flashed Alistair a magnificent side-eye. “Not a word from you."

“Me?” Alistair squeaked, shrugging. “What would I say?”

“You two are truly ridiculous,” Morrigan scoffed. “Utterly childish.”

“It does not _snow_ in Antiva.” Zevran sneezed, a high-pitched sound that had Leliana biting her fist to keep from laughing by the glowing embers of the fire. “I think I have caught something.”

“Well, keep away from me,” Morrigan said, curling her lip at him and scuttling away from him as he drew towards Wynne, the most piteous expression Aine had ever seen settling on his face.

“Wynne, can you brew me a tea?”

She sighed good-naturedly. “Yes, Zevran, I can brew you a tea.”

Sneezing again, Zevran took a seat beside Aine on the log. He scooted close to her for warmth and she didn’t push him away. She didn’t want to get sick, but she didn’t want to be mean, either. She completely understood what it was like out here.

His voice was thick when he asked, “Highever was on the coast?"

She nodded. “Your home in Antiva as well?”

“Yes.”

She opened her fur cloak, reaching out an arm to let him curl beneath it, pressing in against her side. “Hands to yourself,” she mumbled and he grinned, laughing until the sound became a rough cough, coming deep from inside his chest.

Wynne had just brought Zevran a flask of the tea, steaming in the cold air, when a strange silence descended over the camp. Aine looked at Alistair; he was looking beyond her, biting his lip again. Leliana gasped, dropping a handful of twigs and branches across camp; her eyes were wide, her pretty pink lips open in a delicate _O_.

Aine twisted to look around. Standing there, wrapped in a cloak with a scarf covering his head, his shoulders hunched against the cold, was Sten. He was surveying them with emotionless eyes, waiting for them to say something.

Nobody said a word. Leliana clapped her hands over her mouth but she was shaking with silent laughter. Wynne turned away, a hand over her eyes, the other planted on her hip. Alistair was biting the inside of his cheek so hard that Aine was sure he was going to hurt himself.

Morrigan hadn’t seen him yet; she was fussing over her pack, trying to cram more inside of it. “Aine, have you seen my—” She spun around, freezing in place when she saw Sten. She stuttered for just a second before she let out a shriek of laughter.

From beside Aine, Zevran chuckled. When the chuckling became fully-fledged laughter, Sten shot a sharp glance in his direction and he tried to stop, but the laughter turned into coughing and wheezing again, until Aine had to take his flask away for fear he’d drop it.

“I…I have to go,” Alistair muttered, hurrying off into the woods. Aine could hear his laughter all the way from where she sat on the other side of camp.

Without a word, Sten shuffled across the snowy grounds of camp and sat down on Aine’s other side on the log. She bit her lip, looking at the ground for a second before she finally decided that it didn’t matter, and—pulling Zevran with her—scooted close to Sten so they were touching, their sides pressed together, sharing and absorbing body heat.

“Par Vollen?” Zevran asked.

Sten nodded curtly. “Par Vollen.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i just have some headcanons about the weather in other areas of thedas...mostly involving southern/western ferelden being a cold piece of shit
> 
> also no part of me believes the party didn't move around without horses because fuck walking across ferelden eight million times to go back and forth from haven to denerim and shit (can you see how much i've thought about this and how much traveling in that game PISSES ME OFF)


	6. let's get down to business

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> day six: planning family party  
> blackwall/sorcha trevelyan; modern au (continuing after chapters one & three, those are all going to be set in the same kind of universe)

They gathered that afternoon at the war table—the mahogany dining table that Sorcha had just bought at an antique store—on December first.

The five of them gathered around, Josephine laying out her two-inch thick binder, flipping it open to show off her multi-colored tabs organizing each section. She was wearing a black dress with sunflowers on it, a matching yellow headband with a cute glittery bow pushing her bangs back from her face.

Beside her was Leliana looking ready to work in a purple sweater dress and thick black tights with a hood pulled up over her dusky red hair. Dozens of silver bracelets jangled on her wrists. “I’ve got people on this already,” she said, leaning over and pointing to Josephine’s list. “Scout’s handling it, and I can send some of her friends for this other thing.”

Josephine marked it off with a flourish of her bright pink pen. She had an entire pack of highlighters on the table next to her.

Cullen was on the phone, standing next to Leliana, one hand in the pocket of his jeans. He had just come in and was still cloaked in his black winter coat, fur lining his hood, his blond hair windswept. “Yeah, okay. That’s fine, yeah, but—” He shook his head. “No, we need more time than that.”

On his other side, Cassandra was doing the same thing, but she was glaring. “Now, you listen to me, you tiny man, this is how it’s going to go: We need _that_ many by _that_ date. Do you understand me?” She gritted her teeth. “I don’t care if that doesn’t work for you. That’s how it’s going to be.” She fiddled with one sleeve of her crimson sweater, her black skinny jeans showing off her muscular legs as she began pacing.

Sorcha was approving the list of decorations they needed that Josephine had drawn up for her when Blackwall came in. “Sorcha, I’m—” He broke off, eyes widening. “What _is_ all this?”

Josephine looked up, her mouth falling open. “You don’t _know_?”

Leliana looked just as shocked, one hand on her hip. “We’re planning the Christmas party, Blackwall.”

“But it’s only December first.”

Sorcha shook her head as all four of their friends turned to look at him, various looks of disbelief and perturbation on their faces. He had no idea what he was getting into, asking that sort of thing in front of all of them. They were nothing if not tenacious—and festive. 

Cullen broke himself out of it first, talking into his cell phone. “Yeah, no, sorry. I’m still here… Yes, that works.”

Everyone went back to work, Cassandra glowering even more so now, jabbing her finger onto the surface of the table to drive every one of her points home as she continued her argument.

Sorcha, however, pulled herself away from the table for just a minute, smiling at Blackwall. “It’s that time of the year again, I guess.”

“I’m just gonna…” He gestured to the kitchen, towards where the front door was. 

Sorcha nodded, looking back around at everyone gathered. She wouldn't begrudge him an escape, even if she was a little jealous that she had to spend her time shut up indoors talking about petit fours and which champagne brand was the most delicious for the best value. “That’s probably best. I have a feeling we’re going to be here all night.”

Josephine gasped from her place at the table. “Sorcha! Oh my goodness, _please_ tell me you didn’t forget to invite Celene.”

“What? I did not—” Sorcha dashed back to the table.

Blackwall watched them all for a moment, laughing and shaking his head. He left without any one of them noticing. 

When he came back with takeout forty-five minutes later, rolling up his sleeves to jump in and help, the entire table cheered.


	7. friends and family

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> day seven: putting up the stockings  
> blackwall/sorcha trevelyan (also some briefly mentioned f!hawke/anders because i miss them); same modern au 'verse as chapters 1, 3, and 6

When Blackwall came into the living room, Sorcha knew by the look on his face that she’d probably gone overboard.

She glanced at the twenty-something stockings she’d crammed up onto the mantel over the fireplace. Everyone was there: Cassandra, Varric, Cullen, Sera, Dorian, Bull, Vivienne, Josephine, Leliana, Cole, Blackwall, Solas, Hawke, Anders, Rhiannon, Scout, Morrigan, Kieran, plus one for every individual member of Bull’s rugby team, the Chargers. All of their friends, their family, all of which were ready to be filled for the rapidly approaching holiday party with all sorts of fun things that Josephine and Leliana had come up with.

Holding them in place was a long line of duct tape she’d stretched across the dark wood. The last thing she needed was for them to have a fire lit and for her efforts to fall in and go up in very literal flames.

She looked at Blackwall standing there, stunned, his face a blank mask that she couldn’t decipher.

She bit her lip. “Too much?”

He didn’t say anything, turning on one heel and leaving the room. He returned a moment later holding one more stocking, peeling up a tiny patch of duct tape on the end to add the newest addition.   
“You forgot the most important one,” he said, stepping back to admire their shared handiwork. “How’s it look?”

There, sitting on the end was one with a glittering sword sticker clinging to the felt, courtesy of Cole. The name across the top read _SORCHA._

She grinned at him. “Perfect.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i have this headcanon that my hawke would know my inquisitor thanks to varric  
> also in this modern au 'verse, my lavellan and trevelyan are bros


	8. you, me, and a tree

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> i am going to catch up later today I SWEAR

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> day eight: decorating the tree  
> anders/rowan hawke; modern au, tied in with the others

Anders yawned again for the third time in as many minutes and Rowan elbowed him in the side.

“Cut it out.”

“You cut it out,” he grumbled, rubbing at his slender waist where she’d jolted him with her arm. He was shirtless, wearing only a pair of dark green pants with bells hanging from them. His idea of festive, no doubt. She grinned when they jingled merrily with his movement; she loved it.

“This is on you, you know,” she said, staring up at the tree before them. It was scrawny, practically malnourished, but it was the most they could afford on both their pitiful salaries. They probably _could_ have had a nice tree, but that would’ve meant skipping rent for the second time in a row, and their landlord was already sending them threatening glances every time they met in the hallway outside, so…best not.

“Me? How?”

“You just _had_ to join an all-night protest.”

Anders ran a leisurely hand through his sleep-mussed blond hair and she watched him. She loved when he played with his hair, loved watching it sift slowly through his fingers, the light hitting it and spinning it to gold.

“It was on the news and three different newspapers were talking about it this morning. It was a big deal.” He slid a look at her. “Besides, you were there with me.”

Rowan grinned. “Only when my shift was over at two.”

He laid back on the floor, his arms folded beneath his head. “When are you going to stop working at that shitty university pub?”

“Probably when you stop working at that shitty underground newspaper.” She held up a hand when he shot her a glare. “Oh, sorry. _Alternative_ underground newspaper. Whatever that even means.” She reached over him for her pack of smokes, pulling one out and lighting it. He made a face at her and she crawled across the floor to the window, shoving it open a few inches. In doing so, she rattled the menorah sitting there in the sill.

“Why did we even get a tree?” she asked, blowing a plume of smoke outside into the frigid air. She could see all the way across the East End this way, London proper lost in a haze of fog. “You’re Jewish.”

“I like trees.” He curled up on his side to face her. “They remind me of you.”

Rowan spoke to the chilled city outside, smoke giving form to her words.

_“Thy leaves were aye the first o’ spring,_   
_Thy flow’rs the simmer’s pride;_   
_There was nae sic a bonny tree_   
_In a’ the countryside_   
_Oh! Rowan tree!_   
_How fair wert thou in simmer time…”_

 

“I love when you do that.” He sighed.

Rowan looked at him. His eyes were closed. “Hey! Just because you’re Jewish doesn’t mean you get out of helping me decorate this tree.”

He groaned, opening his eyes and sitting up. “Fine. But this means you get to go with me to buy donuts later. And maybe also some fries.”

She cocked an eyebrow at him. “Fries?”

“What? They’re fried potatoes, practically _latkes_.” He stood up, waiting for her to drop the remains of her cigarette out the window before he offered her a hand. He pulled her to her feet and together, they went to inspect the dusty box of ornaments Rowan had spirited off with when she was old enough to leave home.

There weren’t many, but that was probably for the best, as their tree was no more than three feet high and anemic, its branches sparse and thin. Most of them had been stolen by her younger brother Carver over the years at holidays, but that was okay. He deserved a piece of their family, too. Such as it was nowadays.

Anders gently nudged her. “You okay?”

Rowan nodded, smiling at him a little too widely. “Absolutely wonderful.” She reached into the box, pulling out one of her mother’s favorites, a shiny red one shaped like a spiral icicle. It was old, from the sixties or seventies probably, and used to be part of a set of eight, but all the others had perished, broken in moves or by careless hands. Rowan remembered being fascinated by them as a kid, always able to pick them out on a tree no matter how many other ornaments there were.

She held it delicately, her fingers light and loose. She hung it in the middle of the tree, so it wasn’t high enough to shatter on impact if it fell, and not low enough that anything might disturb it from the bottom.

“Oh, I like this one,” Anders said and she turned around to look.

Of course, he _would_ like that one, wouldn’t he? It was a spun-glass orb and inside of it was a hawk spreading its wings, its beak open in a triumphant cry. The inside had been painted to look as though the hawk’s wings and tail were trailing fire.

“My dad made that,” Rowan said. It had always been her favorite. Long had she said—and her mother as well—that Anders reminded her of her father every now and again. He got that look in his eye, that fierce, proud gleam, and it took her away, to a different time. It made her realize just how alike she and her mother really were. It made her realize how much she missed her mother, and father, and Bethany—hell, she even missed Carver a bit, up-jumped little shit that he was. She hadn’t done enough with their parents when they were alive. She hadn’t said enough to Bethany when she’d meant to. She didn’t call Carver enough. She made a decision to do so later that night, see if he had any plans for Christmas—maybe even New Years. It was about time they stopped trying to pretend they hated each other.

Looking at the ornament, cradled carefully in Anders’ hands, she felt like he was holding the whole of her memories, the entirety of her life leading up to this moment. It was the Hawke family in a globe of glass, made of fire. It was all that was left of them, now.  

“Really?” Anders held it up to the light to look inside, to admire the details. “Wow. It’s beautiful.”

Rowan nodded. She couldn’t really find the words, not yet.

“Like magic!”

Rowan nodded again, clearing her throat. “Yeah, I guess it is. Why don’t you put it on the tree?”

He looked at her searchingly, eyes roving over her face. “Anywhere?”

“Go nuts.”

Anders took his time, thinking about it seriously, and she felt the corners of her lips lift at the mere thought of it. He knew how important that ornament was to her, how much her family meant, and even though it was _just_ an ornament, he treated it like he held a star in his hands, something so precious and full of light that it might kill him to break it. She loved that he knew, without even having to ask. She loved _him_.

He finally hung it at the very top. They didn’t have an angel or anything like that, so it worked. It fit. She just knew her dad would’ve been smiling if he knew. Hell, maybe he did.  

“There,” he said, backing up to stand beside her. “Good?”

Rowan leaned against him, resting her head on his shoulder. “Perfect.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this got a lil angsty, my bad  
> anyway thought I'd switch it up with some Jewish celebrating! :) I am, however, not Jewish so any mistakes are totally on me  
> also: "Rowan Tree" is a Scottish poem by Carolina Nairne


	9. sugar and spice

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> man i SUCK but i'm working hard, i promise  
> even if i end up spilling over into january

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> day nine: ruining the holiday dinner  
> cullen/rhiannon lavellan, modern au, tied in with the others
> 
> can you believe this is 10 days late holy hell i'm awful

“It’s going to be great,” Rhiannon insisted again. She bit her lip, fiddling with the temperature knob on the stove. 

Cullen nodded. “I’ll take your word for it.”

“I’m serious. I’m a natural, I can pick up almost any skill in no time.”

“Uh-huh.”

She sent him a severe glance. “If you’re not going to help, I’m going to have to banish you from this kitchen.” He’d told her he would help, and considering it was _his_ family that was coming over that she needed to impress, stress was just not something she was equipped to deal with right now.

Cullen grinned, holding his hands up in defeat. “All right, all right. Apron?”

She tossed him the one that was hanging against the wall, dumping a spoonful of vanilla extract into one bowl, a pinch of rosemary into another.

“Um—Ree?”

She looked over, a trilling laugh escaping when she saw him. The apron only fell to his pockets, the ties stretched tight. The apron she was wearing draped all the way down to her knees and she’d had to tie an elaborate bow to keep the ties out of the way. “Trade,” she said, dusting her hands off.

When they were situated in their proper aprons, she set Cullen to the task of baking the cake. “The dry ingredients just need a little pinch of salt—it’s right there, by that spoon—and then the wet ingredients can be mixed in. Got it?”

Cullen nodded. “You know, I _have_ baked before. I’m not a complete novice.”

“If you’re referring to that time with my birthday, that does not count.”

“Does too,” he muttered under his breath and she snapped a towel at him; he darted away from her, laughing. 

As Rhiannon dumped her rosemary and red potatoes into a glass pan, she reached for the radio on the counter, turning it up just a little bit. All the stations were playing Christmas music and she hummed along. She wasn’t Christian, not in the slightest, but she still appreciated the music, as well as the whimsy and comfort she felt listening to it. Behind her, she could hear Cullen singing quietly and she smiled. She’d always loved his voice.

Their kitchen was so small that at moments they were back to back, Rhiannon fussing over her green beans and Cullen trying to tame their wild mixer. She could feel the vibrations of him singing against her back and it was so relaxing, she wanted to just stand there and close her eyes, lulled into sleep by his presence.

But she couldn’t. Not yet, anyway.

“What time is your family coming?”

“Um.” He glanced at the clock over the stove as he poured the batter into a metal cake pan. “They said around four, but I’m not sure how true that is. You know how they are.”

Rhiannon snorted. “Can’t be any worse than my clan of weirdos. They’re late for just about everything and it’s the norm. Tell ’em one? They’ll definitely be there closer to two.”

“Speaking of—”

“Yes. They expect us to be at their Yule celebration on the solstice. And _yes_ , they are going to bug us about when we’ll be…” She sighed laboriously. “ _Jumping the broom_.”

Cullen snorted. “We could just do it, you know. It would get everyone off our backs and—”

Rhiannon whipped around so fast, her hair smacked his shoulder. “What?” she squeaked.

He turned around to face her, holding a rubber spatula that was covered in cake batter. “I know, you don’t want to get married yet—or ever—but I dunno, we could do the handfasting ceremony if it would make them happy.” He shook his head suddenly, clearing his throat. “If it would make _you_ happy.”

Religion was a point they didn’t always talk about. Rhiannon thought their ideas were similar, and their practices echoed each other, but she couldn’t agree with the way his church did things and he didn’t entirely understand the way hers worked. It was never an issue, however. Respect went both ways.

“Of course it would make me happy!” She threw her arms around him and he hugged her back with one arm, the other keeping the spatula far from her hair. “And you don’t mind?”

He shook his head. “I think it’d be an interesting experience. An adventure. Everything with you always is."

Rhiannon smiled. “I really love you. You know that?”

He brushed this thumb over her chin, tilting her face up to kiss her. “I have some idea…”

They were only kissing for a moment when Cullen gently pulled away, frowning. “Is something burning?”

“Shit, my chicken!” Rhiannon spun away from him, pulling open the oven and peering inside. “It’s fine, it’s totally fine,” she said, pulling the pan out with a potholder and setting it on the stovetop. “Ooh, look at that!” She leaned over it, inhaling deeply. “Your family is going to be _so_ impressed.”

“Great, now let’s put the cake in.”

They spent the next twenty-five minutes cleaning up, hunting down matching crockery and glasses, trying to decide which wine to pull out and whether or not they should abandon it entirely for eggnog. Rhiannon had just turned all the Christmas lights on out front, lighting the path up to their door, when Cullen pulled the cake out of the oven.

“Did you grab all their gifts?”

“Oh, shit. No, they’re still in the hall closet.”

“Okay, I’ll go get them.” Rhiannon left the living room and kitchen, walking down the darkened hallway to the door at the end. Stacked on a shelf beside extra sheets and towels were the boxes Cullen had carefully wrapped, the gifts they’d picked out for his siblings. She brought them out, placing them under the tree. “There.”

When she rejoined Cullen in the kitchen, he’d sliced off a tiny piece of the cake and was chewing it, frowning.

“What?” she asked.

“Here.” He cut off another sliver from the bottom, handing it to her. “Eat this.”

She popped it into her mouth, making a face almost immediately. She spit it back out into her hand. “ _Eugh_ , what the—” She wiped at her tongue, shaking her head. “Why did that taste so…”

“Salty?” Cullen shook his head. “I don’t know. I’m sure I measured out the right amount of salt. And you put the sugar in, right?”

“Yeah, I don’t…” Suddenly she had a terrible, awful thought. “Oh, no. _No_.” She cut off a piece of the chicken where it was cooling in the pan, sticking it in her mouth and chewing vigorously. She screwed up her face again, spitting the chicken back out. “Fuck.”

“What? What’s the matter?” She handed Cullen a fork and he picked off a piece of it, too, eating it hesitantly. He gagged, spitting the chicken into the sink. “ _Ugh_ , it’s sweet, what in the name of—” He turned slowly, meeting her gaze. “Rhiannon, hand me that container of salt.”

She did, tossing the cylinder to him. He caught it one handed, opening it and pouring some into his palm, licking it up. He coughed, shaking his head. “Sugar. It’s sugar, Ree.”

“Fucking—” Rhiannon gripped the edge of the counter for a second before she surged out of the living room, scrambling for where her cell phone was on the coffee table. She picked it up and angrily punched in Sera’s phone number.

She answered on the second right. “Eh, Lavelly!”

“Salt and sugar? _Really_?”

There was a beat of silence before the other end of the phone filled with high-pitched shrieks of laughter, cackles and gasps and hiccups echoing in the background.

“You’re a shithead,” Rhiannon said, hanging up the phone. She stared at it for a moment before even she snickered, shaking her head. Her friends were assholes—but they were _her_ assholes and she loved them.

“Right,” she said to herself, tossing her phone back down on the couch. “Cullen?”

“Sera?”

“Yeah.”

He let out a deep breath through his nose, his arms folded over his chest. There was a smear of flour on his cheek. “Figures.”

Rhiannon leaned against the kitchen counter. Everything was ruined: The potatoes and green beans had been made with “salt”, too. The cake was absolutely disgusting, completely unsalvageable.

She looked at Cullen. “So. Plan B?”

“Call Varric?”

She nodded. “Call Varric.”

* * *

 

Mia got there first an hour later, shucking her coat at the door with Cullen’s help. They hugged, Mia surprising Rhiannon with a swift, tight hug as well. Cullen laughed at her over his sister’s shoulder and the three of them went to the dining area, where Cullen had set everything up on the table.

Mia’s eyes widened. “Oh my god, you two. This looks amazing! What is that, pot roast?”

“And mashed potatoes, green beans…oh, and there’s a pie for after!”

She looked between them, her eyes glimmering. “And you two did all this?”

Rhiannon and Cullen exchanged a glance. He lifted his arm and she leaned into him, his arm wrapping around her shoulder as she grinned. “Yep. Totally.”

“Completely.”

As Mia went to go put her gifts for everyone under the tree, Cullen let out a breath. “Remind me to thank Varric later.”

“Already done.” Rhiannon held up her phone, waving it slightly. “Just got him a signing gig at a bookstore downtown for tomorrow. Owner just emailed me, said his books are nearly sold out.”

Cullen shook his head, bemused. “You know you’re amazing, right?”

“Yeah. I’m going to remember you said that.”

“Good.” He kissed her quick, smiling at her. “Merry Christmas.”

She grinned wickedly. “Happy Yule.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> happy yule, friends :)


	10. warm and fuzzy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> SHIT ok so my charger broke and i couldn't use my laptop for a while because it was at 5% and i'm pathetic  
> so i'm way behind now but i'm going to go ahead and keep going into january, if that's what it takes :)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> day ten: hot chocolate  
> sorcha trevelyan & cole friendship because i adore him to bits, canon 'verse

Sorcha initially tried to bring it up during one of the meetings at the war table, only to be shushed and then promptly ignored by Leliana when she tried to catch her eye. As she was leaving, annoyed at her spymaster’s reaction, she found a note in her pocket.

_Come to the rookery. Don’t tell anyone. L._

Clutching the note, Sorcha took the stairs all the way up, waving to Dorian in the library as she passed. She’d stop on her way out and see how he was doing, but for now, she had to find out why Leliana had elected to being _such_ a spymaster that she couldn’t even address Sorcha’s question in the war room.

The rookery was warmer, far warmer than the bottom floor, down where Solas was poring over old manuscripts and working on a mural that Sorcha liked to look at and study while he painted. Leliana’s ravens croaked quietly, ruffling their feathers and bowing their heads. Several of Leliana’s scouts and spies were congregated there, whispering quietly, and they reminded Sorcha so much of the ravens sitting above that she smiled.

Leliana was sitting at the table by the door when Sorcha approached, holding up the note. “What was all this about?”

Leliana stood, taking the note from Sorcha’s hands and holding it over the candle burning there, until it blackened and dissolved into ash on the surface of the table, leaving a mark behind. “I’m sorry for the deception, Inquisitor. I managed to acquire the item you asked for, but…” She looked around, ducking closer with a playful smirk. “Josephine is absolutely _mad_ for this, I knew if we even mentioned it in front of her, she would be _so_ jealous. Luckily, I bought her some for Satinalia, but that’s not for another month so…” She brought forth a pouch from one of her many pockets, placing it in Sorcha’s hand. “This is for you.”

Sorcha smiled. “Thank you, Leliana. I had no idea about Joephine.”

Leliana laughed musically, nodding. “Yes, she’s got a horrible sweet tooth. I’m sure she’ll forgive our deception as well.”

Sorcha took the pouch and left, spending time with Dorian and asking after the books he’d been reading up there in their downtime.

“What is in that mysterious pouch you’re toting around?” Dorian asked, poking at the small bag in her hand. “Is it deliciously clandestine?”

Sorcha laughed, handing it over to him. “Look inside.”

Dorian’s eyes lit up when he saw it, bringing it closer to his face as he peered in. “ _Oh_.” He took a deep breath, inhaling. “I haven’t seen some of this since back in Tevinter! That is delicious, _where_ did you get this?”

“If I told you, I’d have to kill you.”

A raven squawked particularly loudly upstairs and Dorian slid a look up, the realization dawning on his face. “Uh- _huh_. Maybe I’ll just…go for a walk then, pop in and visit our lovely, graceful spymaster. Chat. Forget all about this sort of thing. Wouldn’t you agree?”

Sorcha smiled, nodding. “That sounds like an excellent idea, Dorian. Pass on my regards, won’t you?”

“Oh, of course.” He flashed her a grin and took off for the stairs. Sorcha watched him go, shaking her head to herself. It was probably best if she _didn’t_ stop by anyone else, just in case. As Sorcha had already learned, word spread like wildfire at Skyhold.

She snuck down to the kitchens, peering in hesitantly from the doorway. Kitchens were not a place she felt at ease; she always felt she was in the way and she never had any idea what was being done down there. The arts of cooking and baking went right over her head, beyond the basics: how to brew coffee, and make breakfast out on the road. That was as far as her experience went.

One of the cooks caught her eye as she rolled out some dough with a pin. She smiled at Sorcha. “Afternoon, Inquisitor. How can we ’elp you?”

Several of the other kitchen hands and cooks looked over at the use of her title, and she smiled as confidently as she could. She strode inside, handing the pouch to the cook who’d spoken to her, a woman named Mayra. Mayra dusted her hands off on her apron, taking the pouch and peering inside. “Oh, Maker! This is a treat. Who’s it for?”

“It’s a surprise. I was wondering if you knew how to…kind of do it up?” Sorcha winced internally; she sounded like a fool.

“I can show you ’ow, my lady! And we’ll get one of these ’elpers to work up some nice whipped cream for it.”

Sorcha watched, paying intense attention as Mayra showed her how to melt it down, how to put in enough sugar and other spices like cinnamon and nutmeg, and just the right amount of whipped cream to dollop on top. There was quite a bit left of the block when they were finished and Sorcha gestured to it.

“You’re all welcome to what’s left, of course!”

The kitchen hands clapped happily, murmuring amongst themselves as Mayra grinned. “Much obliged, my lady! We can fix something that’ll do nicely for everyone at dessert, that we can.”

Sorcha thanked them all profusely before leaving, clutching the earthenware mug in her hands. As carefully as she could, she carried it up several flights of stairs, to the ramparts where she knew he was waiting. She couldn’t see him immediately just yet, but she leaned against the battlement, cradling the warm mug between her palms. A sweet, comforting scent wafted up to her nose.

“Her cup is warm but she’s warm inside, too, like a blanket, like a fire.” Sorcha glanced over at Cole; he was peering at her curiously. “Were you looking for me?”

Sorcha nodded. “I brought you something. A gift.”

Cole stared. “For me?”

“Yes. As a…sign, I suppose. Of our friendship.”

“A sign of our friendship,” Cole repeated softly. “I like that.”

“Here,” Sorcha said with a smile, handing him the mug. “Careful. It’s very warm.”

“It’s…” He held it up to his face, letting the warm steam touch his face, closing his eyes. He sat there for a long time, just basking in it, until he finally carefully tipped it towards his mouth, taking a sip.

His eyes widened. “Warm, sweet, feels like gold in my chest. Comforting…” He turned to look at Sorcha in amazement. “What is this?”

She grinned. “It’s hot chocolate. You melt it, mix it with some spices and things. Do you like it?”

As if in answer, Cole took another sip, a larger one this time. When he looked up, there was a large smear of whipped cream on his nose and upper lip. He looked utterly confused and Sorcha laughed, covering her mouth with one hand.

“Light. Soft…” Cole broke off. “Laughter. Laughter makes your face light, your eyes less sad. It helps you.”

Sorcha nodded, lowering her hand slowly. “It does. Which is why I’m glad to be your friend. _You_ help me.”

He was silent for a moment. “She’s cold. She’s cold and crying, but there’s a smile on her face. Not happy, though; haunted, hopeless, horrified to have done this, sorry, so sorry. Her smile melts in fire and it rains, the world crying for her, for me. She’s dressed in blue, and _I’m_ blue. My hand shakes, tries to touch one last time, but—the fear, so thick, so tiring, so tired. _Why?_ ” His voice drops. “Little light. Gone.”

“Cole—” Sorcha swallowed hard. She loved Cole, saw him as a friend and younger brother, but she would never get used to his unique ability of feeling someone’s hurt, of ferreting it out and presenting it to the sky to be known, especially when it was one of the most painful times in her life, a time she had spent nearly a decade trying to forget.

“She was your sister.”

Sorcha nodded, lips pressed tightly together.

There was a pause. Cole reached out, handing the mug of hot chocolate to her. 

Sorcha looked down at the mug—and slowly, she smiled.  

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i suck at avoiding angst, it's like my go-to thing, sorry


	11. ladyhawke

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> happy new year! i'm stiiiillll writing these :)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> day eleven: secret santa gift exchange  
> anders/rowan hawke, modern au, tied in with the others  
> a lil bit of isabela/fenris too

“I still maintain that I should be exempt,” Anders said as he and Rowan got into the lift. “I’m Jewish.”

“You’re like, half-Jewish.”

“So? That’s still half more than any of you. What are you, the Jewish police?” When she made a face at him, he laughed. “Anyway, I shouldn’t have to celebrate your strange Christian ways.”

“I’m not Christian. Neither is Merill, or Isabela. It’s just good fun.”

“Uh-huh.” He slid a look at her. “Says the person who’s been so stressed about it.”

Rowan sighed, rolling her eyes. She couldn’t deny that. But that was the thing about Secret Santa exchanges, wasn’t it? They were _nerve-wracking_ , completely terrifying. What if she got the wrong thing? What if whoever had pulled her name out of the hat bought her something awful? Then she’d have to pretend to like it in front of them, and although she was a good liar, she’d feel bad about it later. What kind of sick twisted person would enjoy putting someone on the spot like that? Who had even come up with the idea for a Secret Santa?

“Well, you’d be stressed too, you know. If yours wasn’t so easy.”

Anders smiled. “I can’t wait to see the look on his face.”

Anders had picked Sebastian’s name and laughed the entire way home a month before after Thanksgiving. Rowan, on the other hand, hadn’t found it quite so funny. Of all their group of friends, she’d picked her younger brother, Carver—the person she got along with the _least_ , the person who had spent his entire life blaming her for every bad thing that had ever happened in their family, the person she  _still_ wasn't sure how to talk to, even after they had mostly agreed to disagree. 

Perfect, right?

As if he could feel her anxiety, Anders grabbed Rowan’s hand as they were walking down the hallway to Aveline and Donnic’s flat. “It’s going to be fine, Ro. I promise.”

“Yeah?” She reached up a hand, tapping the knocker against the dark wood.

“Yeah.” He bumped his forehead against hers and she smiled.

Donnic opened the door not a moment later, grinning brightly at them. “Hey! Come in. Aveline’s in the kitchen arguing with Varric, he’s trying to spike the punch, I think…”

Rowan snorted. They shucked their coats, Donnic taking them and hanging them in the closet for them. The flat was decorated beautifully; his handiwork, no doubt, as Aveline was usually much too busy—and much too casual—to care about the décor of their holiday gathering. Lights were strung up along the ceiling and there was a merry fire crackling in the hearth. Their Christmas tree glittered in an array of red and gold ornaments and on the mantel, there was a plastic menorah.

Anders pointed at it. “Is that for me?”

Donnic nodded. “Aveline insisted.”

“I’m sure she did.” Anders lifted his gift bag, tissue paper spilling out of it. “We come bearing gifts. That’s a Christian thing, right?”

Donnic laughed, taking the gifts from them and putting them under the tree. “You two were the last to arrive, we were just waiting.”

“On us? How typical,” Rowan said, grinning as she took Anders’ arm and they followed Donnic into the kitchen.

Everyone was crowded inside: Fenris was cramming bottles into the over-filled refrigerator, Carver handing them to him. Varric was indeed standing by a faux-crystal punch bowl, arguing heatedly with Aveline, who was scowling magnificently. Off to the left in the breakfast nook, Isabela was holding court, her arms on the backs of both Merill and Sebastian’s chairs.

When they saw Rowan and Anders, everyone broke off what they were doing to come over, talking at once. Donnic rescued Varric from his wife and Rowan hugged him first, kissing his cheek.

“I’ll cover you if you want,” she murmured.

Varric chuckled. “Already handled, Hawke.”

Rowan leaned back, watching over Varric’s shoulder as Fenris pulled out a flask and up-ended its contents into the punch bowl, stirring idly behind Aveline’s back as she scolded Anders for not eating enough, pinching at his thin sides through his sweater.

Rowan hugged every single one of them, laughing quietly when she saw Sebastian and Fenris hesitate with Anders. While she got along with virtually everyone, her particularly outspoken partner occasionally rubbed their friends the wrong way—sometimes even on purpose; he liked getting to people, riling them up to produce a reaction. As such, it had led to some awkward moments in the past, but she grinned as they both hugged Anders quickly, backs stiff, before moving on to her. She was more warmly received by far and she sent them knowing glances. At least Sebastian had the grace to look admonished, lowering his eyes and flushing; Fenris just rolled his eyes.

“I’m so happy you’re here,” Merrill trilled, spinning, her dark green skirt twirling out around her slender legs. “Now we can open our gifts!”

Rowan laughed, ruffling Merrill’s hair. “Nice to see you, too.”

“Oh! Of course I’m happy to see you too, Rowan. Happier, even!” Merrill blushed a pretty rose. “Erm—”

Varric patted her arm. “It’s fine, Daisy. She knows what you mean.” He grabbed a nearby plastic cup, ladling some of the punch into it and handing it to Rowan.

She took a drink; the liquor in it—whiskey, if she wasn’t mistaken—burned all the way down, scorching the inside of her nose. Her eyes watered and she coughed a little; Aveline sent both her and Varric a suspicious glare, but she said nothing about it as she surveyed Rowan. Aveline wasn’t a hugger, but that was fine with her.

“You’re looking well, Hawke. Glad you could both make it.” She shot a glance in Anders’ direction; he was talking with Varric and Isabela, laughing at something they’d said. “Hope you’re staying out of trouble.”

Rowan saluted. “Of course, DCI Vallen. Wouldn’t dream of it.”

Aveline made a face, but there was the slightest tilt to her mouth. “I’d like to believe you, you know, I _really_ would.”

Rowan smiled crookedly. “So do.”

Rowan was going to take her drink then and find somewhere to sit down, but then she saw her younger brother hovering just out of reach, watching her. It would be hard to miss him; he had the same dark eyes as their mother, his brown skin looking even darker after his summer abroad. His hair had grown longer, too, black and shaggy and altogether like it had been when he was a teenager. She didn't necessarily wanted to be reminded of those times. They had fought constantly. Things had always been tense with Carver, since even before their father had died—but exacerbated by that event, certainly.

She managed a smile. “Hey.”

“Hey.”

“Erm. How’ve you been?”

“Good.” He sipped at his beer. “What about you?”

“I’m all right, yeah.” She looked around, her heart beating painfully fast in her chest, searching for something to talk about. She looked at Aveline and she reached for that, snapping it up. “You having a good time working with Aveline, then?”

“When I see her, yeah. Most of the time I don’t. I’m just a constable, you know.”

“Yeah, I know. But you’ll be an Inspector soon, I bet.” Rowan looked down. “You know, you’re…good at all that stuff.”

“Right. Stuff.” When she looked up, he was smirking wryly. “And you’re still at that pub?”

Rowan nodded. “Me and _my_ stuff.”

Carver pointed with his beer. “Well, your _stuff_ just took a shot with Isabela, so maybe you should get a handle on that.”

Rowan glanced over her shoulder at Anders, smiling. Her stuff, indeed. It was always like this with Carver. Hard at first, tense and strange, but it usually softened and melted away. It would never be _easy_ , but it was getting better. She hoped.

Isabela stood up on a chair in the corner, wavering on her feet slightly. “So are we going to open gifts or not?”

Everybody murmured excitedly and Aveline rolled her eyes, shepherding all of them back into the sitting room. They gathered around the tree, sitting on the floor and piling on sofas and in chairs, curled up against each other or on each other. Merrill declared herself Mother Christmas and began handing out the gifts to everyone, a long green elf hat on her head, a bell on the end of it tinkling merrily as she twirled around, stepping over Fenris and Isabela, their legs outstretched in the middle of the floor.

When everyone had their gifts, they all just sat there for a moment, stunned into inaction. Rowan watched fingers brushing along the edges of boxes, feeling for the seams of wrapping paper; some of them had bags tied up in bright metallic ribbons and she could see Varric peeking inside his before he was nudged by Aveline’s foot. Rowan could practically taste the excitement, wonder, and trepidation in the room; she glanced over at Carver where he was sitting next to Donnic. He was eyeing the label of his with a wary glare, no doubt focused on that _FROM ROWAN_  bit. She swallowed hard.

“Well?” Aveline said. “I didn’t have you all over for nothing. Go on and open them!”

“Wait!” Merrill protested. “We should go one at a time.” She bit her lip. “Shouldn’t we?”

“Yes and I’m going first,” Isabela declared, ripping hers open before anyone could say otherwise. Inside a small box was a collection of handcuffs: one fuzzy red and white, stylized for Christmas; one fuzzy leopard print; and one leather. She shrieked happily while Fenris blushed and muttered to himself.

She examined the card. “Carver Hawke, you absolute blessing!” She leaned all the way over Fenris to smack a kiss on Carver’s cheek, only to be hauled back by Fenris with a feral grin.

Fenris went next: His was a bag with a note on it that said FRAGILE _._ He pulled a handful of bottles out. “They’re from all over,” Aveline said, smiling. “Napa, France, things like that.”

“Alcohol and handcuffs,” Isabela said. “We’re going to have the best New Years ever.”

Everybody laughed at that and Merrill went next. Hers was from Donnic, and it was a collection of seeds and gardening supplies for her to take up in the spring. She hugged both him and Aveline, giggling happily.

Varric was after: Merrill had knitted him a multi-colored scarf because, as she said, she kept running out of yarn and had to buy more. Varric kissed her on both cheeks and put it on immediately, winding it around his neck. “Thanks, Daisy,” he said, piling the long ends into his lap (it was far taller than he was). “I’ll wear it for the rest of winter.”

Donnic was next; Sebastian had gotten him the _Godfather_ collection on blu-ray, but “we can throw out number three, nobody needs that” he said and everyone laughed.

Then it was Sebastian’s turn. Anders grinned next to Rowan as Sebastian pulled out a folded up t-shirt, unfolding it with a curious expression. “What is this—" When he saw what it was, he flushed. " _Anders_.”

Emblazoned on the t-shirt was a classical painting of Jesus, except he was missing his typical robe and crown of thorns, wearing instead a very small pair of gold lamé shorts and black shutter shades, holding a red solo cup. The artist had included a rather spectacular rendering of powerful muscular thighs and cut abs that had Isabela cheering from the other side of the room and Merrill blushing a deep scarlet.

“Christ in heaven, what—”

“You can say that again,” Isabela said, “I’m converting!”

Sebastian made a face, tossing her the t-shirt. “Here, you can have it.”

Rowan bit her lip hard, trying not to laugh. Even Fenris looked as though he was holding it back, though he was trying to maintain his look of indifference with every ounce of strength he possessed. Their eyes met across the room and he let loose a smile, covering it with his hand but not before she saw it. She grinned back at him, shaking her head. Anders couldn't speak through his snickers next to her. Her friends were impossible.

“Your turn!” Merrill said, gesturing to Rowan.

She cleared her throat and turned her attention to the package sitting in her lap. She tore it open and a book fell out. “What is this…” She turned it over; the cover was a the silhouette of a woman leaning against a doorway, holding a scrap of fabric that looked to be a pair of panties in one hand, her hair cascading down one shoulder. Across the top was the word _LADYHAWKE_ , and below, in smaller font, was _a collection of short stories by Varric Tethras and Isabela Rivaini_.

“Oh…my…” Rowan flipped through it, opening it to a random page. She read through a paragraph, snorting and covering her mouth with her hand. Anders leaned over to see what it was and he muttered something in Yiddish under his breath.

“Is this a collection of smutty short stories?”

“Yes, it is!” Isabela cried. “Aren’t they wonderful? I wrote the fourth one entirely, let me know what you think.”

“I’m…I don’t even know what to say.”

“I live to please,” Varric said, taking a half-bow from where he was sitting farther down the couch.

“Dog-ear the good ones,” Anders murmured and Carver sputtered from his other side.

“Okay,” Merrill said, clapping her hands. “Anders, Carver, and Aveline. You’re the last ones!”

“Aveline’s next,” Varric declared.

Aveline scowled at the enormous bag that Merrill had placed at her feet. “I don’t want to go next.”

“Too bad," Rowan said. "It’s your turn.”

She sighed laboriously, reaching for the bag and pulling out the tissue paper. “What _is_ this, we said fifty pounds maximum—”

“It didn’t cost me a dime over thirty, I swear," Varric said, holding up a hand. "I have a friend of a friend, let’s not get into it—”

Aveline pulled what looked like a large painting halfway out of the bag before jamming it back inside, but not before Rowan got a glimpse of an entwined couple on a hill, the man shirtless and the woman’s hair blowing in the wind. She couldn’t have said for sure, but the man looked like he was wearing a kilt, and the woman looked as though she had…long, red hair.

“Varric, I swear, I’m going to—”

“What? It’s a great painting. He did an amazing job capturing the two of you.”

“Wait, what is that? Let me see!” Isabela jumped up, stepping over Fenris and diving for the bag before Aveline could stop her. She hauled the painting out, shrieking with joy at the sight. Sure enough, it was a painting of Aveline and Donnic, both of them holding swords in one hand, their arms wrapped around each other. A castle loomed on the cliffs behind them, the sky a dark purple, a lightning strike hitting the highest tower.

“That is _magnificent_ , Varric. You have to introduce me to this friend of yours!”

“Give me that,” Aveline snarled, snatching the painting back. She handed it to Donnic. “Throw this in the fireplace, will you? It’s horrendous.”

Donnic held it up to the light to inspect it. “Oh, I dunno,” he said, peering closely. “The detail is really impeccable, Aveline. You know, I kind of like it.”

Everyone laughed and cheered as Aveline buried her face in a pillow, yelling obscenities. 

“All right, all right, leave the lady alone,” Varric said, shushing them and taking the painting back from Donnic. He slid it back into its bag, gesturing to Carver. “Junior, it’s all you.”

“And the Jew goes last,” Anders muttered. Rowan elbowed him and he grinned. “What?”

Carver carefully peeled open the wrapping paper, still smirking after all the other ridiculous gag gifts they’d given. He must have been expecting something else because when he flipped the frame over and saw what it was, the smile slipped off his face. When everyone else realized what he was holding, the chatter and laughter died out, the entire room going silent.

Rowan could hear her heartbeat in her ears, thundering like a storm in the sky. Her mouth tasted like metal and her head felt light when she stared at Carver, waiting for him to say something, to react. He didn’t, just kept his eyes down on the photo held careful and safe behind glass, a moment in time perfectly preserved.

"What is it?" Isabela whispered to Fenris. He shook his head, glancing at Rowan. Not the type to take no for an answer, Isabela leaned over him, peering at what Carver was holding. Her face changed, the curiosity becoming concern and understanding all at once. "Oh," she said softly, sitting back down. Without a word, Fenris took her hand and she entwined her fingers with his. 

“Um,” Rowan said, filling the silence. Everyone but Carver turned to look at her. “I found that the other day when I was going through storage. I just thought…you might want…”

It was a picture of their family standing in front of the new house they’d bought when they were all kids. Their parents stood on the top step of the porch, arms around each other. Malcolm was kissing Leandra’s cheek; he’d done it at the last second and she was caught mid-laugh. Rowan stood in front of them on the next step, sticking her tongue out and crossing her eyes. She’d messed up almost every family photo they’d ever taken, much to Leandra’s annoyance.

The bottom step, however, was the best. Bethany and Carver sat side by side, arms thrown around each other, their faces smushed in next to each other. They were both grinning, Carver missing his front teeth, Bethany's hair in a mess of braids.

Rowan hadn’t been able to think of anything else that Carver would like—but she figured if there was anything, an old picture of their family and how it used to be, would do the job. If there was anything he loved more than picking fights, it was their little family, now broken. 

Carver looked up at her. His eyes were bright. He held it up, shaking it slightly. “This is…” He trailed off, clearing his throat. “I mean. This is amazing, Ro. Thank you.”

She smiled, genuinely and fully. “You’re welcome, Carver.” 

He cleared his throat again several times as he held tight to the picture. He showed it to Varric and Isabela and Sebastian, who'd always been fond of Bethany, but he never once let it go. 

Rowan was in a happy daze after that, glad she had been able to do something _right_ for once, and hardly paying attention when Anders finally went last, opening his gift from Fenris. It was the silence that got her, drawing her attention to Anders and what he was holding. When she saw it, her mouth dropped open, thoughts of Carver pushed away. It was one of those Hickory Farms Christmas packs, with summer sausage, crackers, and cheese.

Anders stared at it for a solid minute, frowning. Isabela got the joke first, snorting and clapping a hand over mouth. Varric was next, clearing his throat, hiding his smile with several polite coughs. 

“What?” Donnic asked. “I don’t get it.”

Sebastian glanced at him. “He’s Jewish.”

“So?”

“Kashrut,” Anders said, looking up. “Can’t eat meat and dairy together.” He smiled thinly at Fenris. “Thanks. I really appreciate it.” Silently, he mouthed, _I hate you._

Fenris grinned slowly, looking absolutely unbothered and, if Rowan was being honest, quite proud of himself. “No problem. Merry Christmas.”

“Yeah. Still Jewish.”

Rowan took a page out of Varric's book and coughed to hide her laugh. “I’ll eat it.” She took it from him, shaking it at Fenris. “So thank _you_.”

He smiled genuinely at her, bowing his head. “Of course, Hawke. Anything for you." 

Anders narrowed his eyes. 

As they were leaving a few hours later, Rowan thoroughly buzzed, Anders was holding up the Hickory Farms package and glaring. “What a fucking _laugh_.” He shook the box hard enough to break some of the crackers inside. “Ha-ha, let’s give the Jew some gross food. _Ugh,_ I _really_ hate that guy—”

“No you _don’t,_ ” Rowan said, pushing the button for the lift three times in a row. “He was just joking. It’s no different than your gift to Sebastian.”

“Yes, it is. Mine was _funny_.”

“So was his! And this means I have a snack I don’t have to share with you." She reached for the box. "Speaking of, give it here, I'm hungry..."

He yanked the box away from her grasping hands. "Absolutely not, it's mine."

"But you can't eat it! And if I have to share my gift with you, then you have to share with me."

The frown eased off Anders' face and he grinned. "That's different." He placed the box of food under one arm, taking her book out of her bag and flipping through it. "Chapter four, Isabela said? Hmm...Oh, _wow_ , okay." 

"Hey! No spoilers." 

A door opened down the corridor and Rowan turned. Carver was there, walking towards them. “Hey, you guys ducked out before I could say goodbye.”

“We’re going to visit other friends tomorrow morning, we had to leave early.”

“Yeah, I saw Nathaniel yesterday, he told me you were coming by.” Carver jammed his hands in his pockets, looking at Anders. “I just wanted a quick word with Rowan, if that’s okay?”

“Sure.” When Anders lingered for a moment, Carver shot him a glance. “Right! Sorry, I just—” The lift dinged and the doors opened. Anders stepped in, waving the book. “I’ll meet you downstairs, yeah?”

“Be right down!” Rowan called as the doors closed. “What is it, Carver?”

“I just wanted to, erm. Thank you. Again.”

“Of course.”

To her surprise, Carver stood there for a moment, just looking at her. He looked as though he wanted to say something more. She raised her eyebrows, about to ask what, when suddenly he folded his arms around her, pulling her into a tight hug. He buried his face in her shoulder, squeezing. “I love you, Rowan,” he muttered.

Her eyes widened with surprise, but she hugged him back. “I love you too, Carver.”

“Merry Christmas?”

They parted and she stared at him. “Uh, yeah. Merry Christmas.” She squeezed his shoulder, smiling. “Take care of yourself, all right?”

He pulled away, grinning back at her. “Always do. It’s the Hawke way, yeah?”

“Yeah,” she said softly when he’d retreated, closing the door to Aveline and Donnic’s flat. “Yeah, it is.”

Anders was waiting for her outside, his collar turned up against the chill wind. He was taking swigs out of the bottle of wine that Aveline and Donnic had given everyone, as a thank you for coming, flipping through the book from Isabela (and Varric). The box he had on the ground, one of his feet leaning on it. She stared at him for a moment, taking in the view. Behind him, the lights of London shone, yellow and warm, and Christmas lights were strung up on the rooftops between streets, their colors sparkling in the night. A shop next door was playing Christmas music, and _“Silent Night”_ crooned softly into the air.

Anders turned his head and caught her eye. "Isabela's getting better, I think you'll definitely like chapter four." One side of his mouth curled up as he flashed her a half-smile, closing the book with a snap. He bent, picking up his box. “Ready to go?”

Rowan nodded. She slipped her arm through his, plucking the wine bottle out of his hand and taking a drink. “Yeah, let’s go home.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'm still not jewish sadly so sorry if anything in here is wrong, it's completely my fault and i suck


	12. you and me under a tree

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> thanks for the comments, y'all are cute :)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> day twelve: unwrapping presents  
> cullen/rhiannon lavellan, modern au, tied in with the others

Rhiannon stared at the pile of presents stacked haphazardly beneath their tree, frowning. How she _hated_ Christmas Eve and its silly traditions. Why couldn’t they just open them all now? “How am I supposed to pick just one?”

“I don’t know,” Cullen said seriously. “It’s a very big decision. There are quite a lot under there with your name on them.”

“There’s like, the same amount for each of us. Probably.”

Cullen stepped up behind her, wrapping his arms around her middle. His breath was warm against the side of her head when he said, “I suppose a case _could_ be made for two…”

She smiled, twining her arms around his. “Oh, yeah?” She spun around, their chests pressed together. “How about I unwrap something of _yours_ instead?”

He blushed, cheeks going an adorable dusky rose, but he was grinning when their lips met.

Afterward, Rhiannon sat up, edging out away from the bottom of the tree. There were pine needles in her hair and an ornament that had fallen down, a little red bow made of velvet. She plucked it out carefully, hanging it back up in the nest of branches. The only illumination in their sitting room was the lights strung up on the tree, everything gold and glittering.

Cullen rolled over away from her over their scattered clothes, stretching his legs and reaching for the throw blanket on the edge of the couch. He pulled it down, throwing it across them. Rhiannon was about to lay back down when she noticed a present at the bottom of the tree that had strayed from the pile. A corner of the wrapping paper had been torn, probably by her own fingernails, and she grinned guiltily. She snatched it up with nimble fingers. 

“Guess this is the one I’m opening, huh?” She shook it next to her ear, listening closely. 

Cullen laughed, his voice rusty with warmth. “Guess so. That one’s yours?”

She nodded, laying down and snuggling against him, drawing her feet up to warm them on his thigh. “Yep. This one’s mine.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> y'know, i used to say "y'all" ironically but now it's a part of my every day vocabulary
> 
> why. who am i


	13. oh snow you don't

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> day thirteen: making a snowman  
> alistair/aine cousland, DA:O canon 'verse before Orzammar

“Oh, come on. You can’t tell me you’ve never made a snowman before?”

Aine glared at Alistair from beneath her hood. She hated winter, she hated the cold, and she was more than ready to get out of the Frostback Mountains and back to civilization—whatever that meant. “It doesn’t _snow_ in Highever. It just gets slushy and muddy there. It’s too close to the ocean.”

“Uh-huh. Come here, then.” He crooked a finger at her.

Aine rolled her eyes but she stood, shuffling through the snow to reach him.

“Okay, so what you do first: Make a snowball.”

Aine flashed a glance at him but bent down and did what he said, gathering a handful of snow together, packing it into a ball. It looked more like a lumpy snow potato than anything, but she could tell he was excited about all this, so she didn’t say anything. He demonstrated the next step for her: Rolling that snowball along the ground, allowing it to collect more and more snow, growing larger and larger.

She mimicked his action, but it was far more difficult than he made it look. By the time she had rolled hers into a sizeable ball, slightly larger than a globe, she was admittedly winded. Nothing got her down like the cold and a rumbling belly—with the snow and the hope that they were going to reach Orzammar any day now, food was running lower than normal, and she’d only eaten once that day. Still, it wasn’t anything she hadn’t faced before, and she started building up a new snowball for the snowman’s midsection.

Zevran wandered over while they were in the middle of it, as equally bundled up against the weather as she was. Alistair’s was neater than hers, but hers was taller, albeit slightly crooked. Zevran looked on with a critical eye, one finger tapping against his pointed chin.

“May I offer some assistance?”

Alistair stood up, brushing snow off his gloved hands. “Sure, if—”

“Not you, Alistair. I was referring to our lovely Warden over here.”

Aine grinned at Zevran. “Of course!”

Alistair’s face fell. “Are you saying I’m not lovely?”

“Not at all, simply that Aine is much lovelier than you.”

“Well, that’s true.” Still, Alistair pouted, shooting a glance at Zevran. “I could be lovely.”

“Yes, Alistair, of that I have no doubt.” When Alistair wasn’t looking, Zevran and Aine exchanged a look. She grinned into her hood, turning her face away.

It was only when Aine was fixing the head, giving it two shiny rocks for eyes, that she noticed Zevran’s _helpful additions_. She squawked, laughing at the two snowballs he had stuck to the snowman’s chest. “Zev!”

“What? Surely a snowwoman is better than a plain old snowman.”

Alistair blushed while Aine cackled, her breath clouding the air in frigid plumes. “That’s an excellent point. There seems to be quite an unequal number of snowmen versus snowwomen.” She smiled at him. “It’s fabulous, Zev, truly.”

“I knew you’d appreciate it. We should try and fashion her some hair…” Zevran bent down, gathering up some more snow.

“It’s a shame they’re not closer,” Alistair said, looking at the two snowpeople. “Y’know. So they could hold hands.” He readjusted the sticks he’d jammed onto his as arms, but they were inches away from each other, not able to touch. His cheeks were pink, but whether that was from the snow or his blush, Aine wasn’t sure. 

“That’s an easy fix, I think,” Aine said. She stood beside her snowwoman, grabbing onto the stick as though she was holding her hand. She held out her other one for Alistair. He grinned and took it, holding his snowman’s “hand” as well.

“There,” Aine said. “That’s better, right?”

“Yeah,” Alistair said. He let go of his snowman, taking both her hands in his. “That’s better.”

Zevran stood, dusting snow off his hands and the knees of his pants. “Sadly, I am going to have to excuse myself. You two are making my teeth ache.”

Alistair rolled his eyes and Aine laughed again. From beyond Alistair, however, she saw Morrigan approach, her dark hood pulled up over her hair. When she caught sight of the two of them holding hands, she made a face, her nose wrinkling and lip curling in disgust. “ _Ugh_ ,” she said, shaking her head. “’Tis a hideous sight, so early in the day.”

“Just early in the day?” Alistair drawled.

“No,” Morrigan replied haughtily. “All the time, truthfully, but I said so out of respect to our _other_ Warden. The one without fleas.”

“I don’t have fleas!” Alistair looked at Aine. “Do you see what she does? Every day, it’s like this, I—”

From behind Alistair, Aine could see Morrigan raise her hands. The air filled with light, a stream of green shooting from her hands, hitting his snowman and making it glow. Alistair  whipped around and stared at it, his wide eyes reflecting the glimmer of her magic.

“What are you doing?”

“Something I should have done sooner,” Morrigan said, the light in the air fading. She clapped her hands together and began walking away. “I’m going to find Leliana and hunt. She may be a Chantry mouse, but she at least has the good sense to be away from _you_.”

“What the—what did she mean by that?"

“I don’t…” Aine started to say, but she caught movement out of the corner of her eye. She looked down. The snowman was still glowing green, and as she watched, it began to shudder. “Alistair—”

The snowman’s mouth opened, rocks spread wide in a horrific smile. Alistair yelped, leaping away from it, kicking up snow in the air. It chased after him, floating through the air and grinning menacingly.

“Aine!” Alistair shrieked. “Do something!”

“I…” Aine didn’t know whether to intervene or collapse into the snow, breathless with laughter; she couldn't believe what she was seeing. She watched the snowman float after him in circles as he dodged and twisted away from it. Aine stooped, throwing some of the snowballs he’d made at it. To her surprise, it simply absorbed them, growing larger.

“What are you _doing_?” Alistair shouted. "Hurt it or something!"

“I’m _trying_!” She resorted to rocks next, but it managed to evade her.

“Are you a Grey Warden or not? Kill it!”

Aine gritted her teeth, grabbing her sword where it was resting in its scabbard on a nearby log. She yanked, pulling her sword free, running to his defense as he climbed up onto a large rock, clinging to it miserably. His sword was, unfortunately, strapped to his saddle and Sten had taken the horses down to the river with Wynne for water, so he was completely helpless.

Aine swung, swiping her sword through its snowy body. The slash struck a good six inches of snow from its midsection—but right before her eyes, it seemed to knit itself back together, pulling more snow forth from the ground, becoming even larger, almost all the way up to her waist now. She cried out, thrusting her blade through its face; again, it reformed itself and, just for good measure, poked Aine in the leg with one of its stick arms. She shouted, falling backwards in the snow away from it.

With Alistair on the rock, it turned its attentions on her, advancing slowly. Aine was kicking backwards away from it, scrambling for her sword where she’d dropped it, when a fireball came flying from one side of the clearing, slamming into the snowman just as it was about to throw itself at her. It exploded in a burst of snow and water, melting into chunks, its eyes and lips and arms all falling to pieces at Aine’s feet.

She turned, staring, breathing hard. Alistair, too, was looking open-mouthed at Wynne as she walked steadily into the clearing.

“Do I even want to know how the two of you came to be attacked by a possessed snowman?” Alistair opened his mouth to answer, but she held up a hand. “Let me guess: Morrigan.”

They both nodded, words failing.

“I’ll have a word with her about what sort of magic is unacceptable on our companions, though whether or not she'll actually _listen_ remains to be seen. Now, I have another question, and this one may be even more important.” Wynne pointed to the snowwoman behind Aine. “Who put breasts on that snowman?”

This time, Aine tried to reply, but again, Wynne answered herself. “Zevran,” she said aloud. “It had to be Zevran. Yes?"

Again, they nodded.

“I thought so.”

With that, she walked away, towards where their piled tents and blankets sat on a dry rock, waiting for Sten and the horses; Aine could hear them approaching, their hooves clopping over the rocky hills.

“Give us a hand you two, will you?” She looked back at them. “We'll never reach Orzammar with the two of you laying around all day."

Aine looked over at Alistair. His expression was as dumbfounded as she felt. A breath whooshing out of her, she let her head fall back in the snow, not even caring about the cold or the wet, staring up at the gray sky overhead.

“Alistair?”

“Yeah?”

“Building a snowman? Not for everyone.”

“Yeah, I think I understand that now. Let’s…let’s not do that again.”

She waved half-heartedly at him. “Agreed.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> did i listen to 'do you want to build a snowman?' from frozen on repeat while writing this?
> 
>  ~~maybe~~ yes


	14. ...bees?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> day fourteen: receiving horrible presents  
> blackwall/sorcha trevelyan, canon inquisition 'verse

Sorcha knew something was wrong the moment she entered her room at Skyhold.

It wasn’t really something she could explain, not in so many words. It was a feeling, something _different_ about the silence that let her know someone had been in her private space, that someone had moved through air that was hers.

She stopped at the top of the stairs, looking around. Everything seemed to be in place: Books on their shelves, curtains closed on her bed, balcony doors open to let in the fresh air…and then she saw the package on the surface of her desk.

Narrowing her eyes, Sorcha walked over to it, keeping a wide berth in case it was something dangerous. It didn’t appear to be at first glance: it was a tall, cylindrical object that appeared to be wrapped in brightly colored paper, albeit badly. Sorcha looked around, making sure nobody was there before she approached. 

There was a note on a tiny string wrapped around the top of it. Sorcha flipped it open. There was a crude drawing on it of what Sorcha assumed was her (there was a similar tattoo on the cheek, so it _had_ to be) holding a sword and sticking out her tongue. Underneath, it said, _TO INKS, FROM SERA_ in big, crooked letters.

She cocked an eyebrow. An early Satinalia gift…from Sera.

Gingerly, she untied the string and reached for the paper, peeling off a piece of it. There was more paper underneath and she could hear a faint humming sound. She frowned. Trust Sera to make it overly complicated. Shaking her head, she ripped the red paper off, finding blue underneath. She ripped that off as well, finding yellow paper below that. Biting her lip and scowling now, she yanked on it—only to discover more red beneath. The humming got louder. Growling, Sorcha tore it all to pieces in a frenzy, _finally_ exposing the glass jar beneath.

In her annoyance, however, she didn’t notice the lid was loose, not screwed on properly. Her hand knocked it askew as she pulled off the last of the paper and a swarm of angry bees came tearing out of the mouth of the jar.

Sorcha had an instant of shock to drop the jar; it shattered around her feet. Throwing her arms up around her face, she ran for the door. Something pinched on her arm, then her neck; they were _stinging_ her and she shouted, careening down the stairs and slamming into the door. She threw it open so fast that it banged against the wall. She flung it shut behind her, gritting her teeth so hard that her jaw ached.

Her skin was on fire. She looked down at her arm. There were three red angry marks on her right arm, two on her left. _Maker,_ it burned, her eyes watering, hands trembling. There was another bump on her neck as well; when she touched it gingerly, pain lanced through her. She wanted to tear her skin off with her teeth, wanted to jump into the snow outside just to get it to _stop_.

She looked back at her door and growled again. She stomped off back to the main hall.

“Tell Sera,” Sorcha said, slamming her palms down on Josephine’s desk, making her advisor squeak with alarm, “that until she gets every single bee out of my room, Red Jenny can go to hell.”

Josephine’s eyes narrowed at her, taking in her appearance. “What in Andraste’s name happened to you?”

“Sera left me a _gift_.”

There was a gentle touch on Sorcha’s back and she stiffened, twisting, fully intending to punch whoever was touching her, when a hand gripped the back of her neck tightly. “Kindly stay still, Inquisitor,” Leliana said, her voice calm and pleasant. She lifted the ends of Sorcha’s dark hair, flipping up her collar, brushing at her with gentle fingers. 

Sorcha looked down. Several dead bees had fallen to the floor. Josephine was looking at them with an expression of distaste. 

Leliana released Sorcha, walking around her to the front of Josephine’s desk. She was holding a live bee by its wings between her thumb and forefinger. “A gift, you say?”

“Yes.”

“Hm. These could be useful in a fight.”

Josephine frowned, going through some of the pages on her desk. “Now that you mention it…I do believe Sera left me a note about the use of bees. It might be an avenue to consider, I suppose.” When Sorcha stared at her, she shrugged. “Or perhaps not.”

“Relay my message to Sera, will you?”

“Yes.” Josephine picked up her clipboard. “What was that again?”

“Bees entirely out of my room, or she can go fu—”

Josephine set her quill back down forcefully, nodding. “Yes, I believe I can remember that. Thank you.”

Leliana smiled. “You know, Inquisitor, you really should elevate those arms.”

Sorcha didn’t bother responding.

“Oh Maker, where are you going?” Josephine called after her as she stalked away.

“To find a mage and some herbs!”

Dorian laughed at her when he saw her come up the stairs into the library, red and swollen and pissing mad. “Oh, dear. And here I thought Sera was _joking_ about the present she had in mind.”

“Shut up and put some ice on me.”

“Now, now. You catch more flies with honey, you know.” He grinned, holding his hands out over her arms. “Or bees, rather?”

She opened her mouth to retort angrily, but then she saw the cloth bandage peeking out from underneath the collar of his robe and she stopped. “Uh- _huh_ ,” she said, raising an eyebrow at him. “Or bees in _your_ case, perhaps?”

His smile collapsed into a frown. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” He numbed the stings on her arms and neck without another word, sniffing imperiously at her when she smirked at him. He turned away as soon as he was finished, returning to his books, and she rolled her eyes as she left.

Later that evening, she was soaking in a bath in her newly de-bee’d quarters (a note had been left to her door, stuck fast with an arrow; on it was a picture of a badly drawn elf laughing and some bees flying around) when there was a knock on the door.

“Go away,” she muttered. She was nursing a bottle of whiskey and in no mood to chat.

“It’s me,” Blackwall said.

“Don’t go away.”  

She thought about covering herself, at least _trying_ for some modesty, but then thought better of it. There were enough herbs and strange magical oddities in the water, thanks in part to both Solas for healing and Vivienne for comfort, and she was practically drowning in rose petals, elfroot, and a massive amount of lavender-scented bubbles. It wasn’t her favorite, the lavender—it reminded her too much of her grandmother’s estate back in Ostwick—but it soothed her all the same.

When he saw she was reclining in the brass tub Josephine had acquired for her (a gift Sorcha would never be able to truly repay), he stayed by the stairs, leaning against the railing beside her lounge, folding his arms across his chest.

He made a face at her. “Smells like an apothecary in here.”

“I’m meant to be _resting_ ,” she said, wrinkling her nose. “But yes, the lavender’s a bit much. You can thank Vivienne for that.”

“I’d rather not.”

“Me, too.”

Blackwall smiled at her. The doors to her balcony were thrown open, the setting sun casting him in a brilliant orange glow, and she loved the way it made him look, all golden and soft. She sunk down lower in the tub, sighing, taking a deep drink of whiskey from the bottle. For such a bad day, she wasn’t doing so bad at present.  

“How are you feeling?” Blackwall asked.

“Better,” Sorcha said, sitting up again. Some of the water sloshed out and she made a face. “Much better, actually. Turns out elfroot and drink are just the right cure for bee stings.” She held out the bottle, shaking it at him. She felt loose and warm and pleasant for the first time in a long time. “Want some?”

His eyes focused on her arm, trailing over her shoulder, wet and slick with bubbles. “Something like that.”

She smiled shyly, taking another drink herself. “Blackwall?”

“Yes?”

“If it ever comes up, I don’t want anything for Satinalia.”

“Oh?”

“Yes. Tell anyone who asks. I think I’ve had enough of gifts to last me a _very_  long time.”

She glanced at her desk where all the wrapping paper still sat. The jar was gone. Maker knew what Sera had done with all those bees.

It wasn’t until the next morning, when she was in the courtyard talking to several of the mages from Redcliffe and only _slightly_ hungover, that she heard a strangled shout from the direction of Cullen’s tower. She looked, saw him come running out, slamming the door behind him with both hands. 

Sorcha shook her head. “Excuse me,” she said to the mages. “I have to go find some elfroot.” _And whiskey_ , she thought, rolling her eyes. _Lots of whiskey._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'm not sure who came up with the idea for that bees mission on the war table  
> but i'm thankful for it every day


	15. snow white and the grey wardens

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> i've got a few of these lined up and i'm still writing them, i've just been drowning in school
> 
> also i know it says "sleigh ride" but sleds are more fun in my opinion, so i changed it up a bit oops

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> day fifteen: a sleigh ride (sled ride)  
> leliana/aine cousland; DA:O canon 'verse

“You’re sure this is a good idea?” Aine asked again.

Zevran waved away her concern. “Of course! You’ll be fine.”

“What do you know? It doesn’t snow in Antiva.”

“No, but we have these exquisite water pools. It works quite well there and it’s the same concept, really.” He shook his head. “The point is, it’s going to be fun.”

“I remember the last time you said that,” Leliana murmured and Aine shot her a smile.

Aine remembered the last time he’d said that, too. Sort of. The last thing she remembered was Antivan brandy, cards, and challenging a pirate to a duel. She’d woken up in bed with a handful of other people, not to mention a splitting headache from what must have surely been all the alcohol in Ferelden. So much for being responsible and stopping the Blight. That was what she got for going to the Pearl in Denerim and listening when Zevran said, _it’ll be fun…_

“I promise.” Zevran held up a hand. “Assassin’s honor.”

“You’re a terrible assassin,” Morrigan pointed out.

He shushed her quickly. “Do you want to see them go down this hill or not?”

Morrigan thought it over for a moment. “Yes,” she decided. “I do. Carry on.”

“Thank you.” Zevran stood in front of them, between the shields they were sitting on, the ones he had picked up off of dead bandits that they’d slain in their path not an hour before. “Now, when I say go, you’re going to push off and go sliding down the hill. Whoever makes it to where Alistair is napping wins.”

Aine peered down the hill. Sure enough, Alistair was at the bottom, resting on a rocky outcropping with a blanket pulled up to his ears. He’d stood guard most of the night; chances were, when they came sledding down, he wouldn’t even notice.

“All right. Are you ready?”

“Wait, wait,” Leliana cried, sitting down quickly on her shield. She scooted along in the snow up to where Aine was, beaming at her when they were even with one another.

“Okay. Now?”

Both heads of flaming hair, one a shade darker than the other, nodded.

“On the count of three—one, two, _three_!”

Aine pushed forward, kicking off the ground. The shield tipped forward on empty air and then she was sliding, careening down the snowy incline. The shield scraped over the snow with a slick _whooshing_ sound and she screamed as it hit a rock, sending her jolting sideways.

She laughed, the cold wind rushing at her face, making her eyes water. Some days on their journey were difficult, and she found herself not even wanting to get out of bed in the mornings. But then there were some days like today, where she forgot about what had happened to her parents, where she could forget about the state of the world and the impossible pressure looming over both her and Alistair, over _all_ their companions. Every now and again, there were days when the thing she was most concerned about was whether or not she was going to win a race down a hill—and that was enough.

She let go of the sides of the shield, throwing her arms up in the air, dizzy and reckless and wild and utterly free. She whooped loud enough that birds in the trees lining the slope took off into flight, scattering into the air, silhouetted against the sunlight.

They passed the halfway mark, Leliana slightly ahead of Aine. She could feel the shift, could feel herself moving faster and she dropped her arms down, digging her fingers into the edge of the shield.

From beside her, Leliana was screaming; somehow, she’d begun spinning and her hair was whirling around her face. Aine laughed again—until another outcropping of rock sent her barreling to the right, her shield knocking into Leliana’s as they passed Alistair’s napping spot. She yelped as the two of them sped off the path, flying straight into a snowdrift that engulfed them as they made contact.

Dazed, dizzy. It took Aine a moment to gather her thoughts, to take stock of her body and where she was, her mind tangled up by the force of impact. One thing she had never quite gotten used to was how _solid_ snow could be.

Cold was the first thing Aine felt. Cold and _wet_. She coughed, sputtering as she pushed her way out of a mound of snow. She shook her head, clumps of it scattering wildly, let loose from the confines of her braided hair. She blinked in the bright wintry sunlight, squinting. Alistair was still asleep on the outcropping; he’d simply rolled over, drooling onto his blanket. She rolled her eyes at him, looking at the mess she and Leliana had made. Her shield had vanished, but Leliana’s was poking up from the snow, wedged in deep like a forgotten remnant of some battle.

A few feet away, Leliana was lying on the ground, eyes closed, not moving.

Aine’s heart spiked with panic. “Leliana?”

No reply.

“Leliana!” Aine crawled frantically to where Leliana was laying, kicking up drifts of snow, her hands numb and soaked when she reached her.

She didn’t notice the smile on her face until it was too late.

_WHAP!_

Aine jerked back, shaking her head; her eyes were stinging from the cold. “ _Blegh_ ,” she said, spitting snow out of her mouth. She glared at Leliana through a face full of it. Her eyes were open now and she was biting her lip to keep from laughing.

She broke, giggling madly, drawing her knees up to her chest. “You look s-so funny,” she managed, wheezing, “it’s all on your eyebrows, you look like you have a beard!”

Aine snarled, throwing herself onto Leliana, grabbing a handful of snow to rub in her face. Leliana shrieked, trying to roll away from her, but Aine’s grip on her cloak was strong and they went tumbling through the snow a little farther down the hill.

“Stop, stop—I yield!” Leliana yelled, laughing, squirming beneath Aine. “I yield, milady!”

Aine leaned back over Leliana, smearing the snow off her own face and grinning. “I win?”

“Yes,” Leliana said with a smile. “You win.”

Aine grinned. “Good.” She leaned down over her, brushing a strand of Leliana’s hair out of her eyes. Seized by the impulse, by the wildness of their combined heartbeats and mingling breath, by the afternoon sunlight filtering through the bare trees around them, Aine bent down and pressed her lips to Leliana’s.

Leliana’s smile widened beneath Aine’s and she wrapped her arms around Aine’s neck, pulling her in closer. Aine laughed against her and just as she was tilting her head, losing herself in the sweetness of Leliana’s breath and the softness of her lips, her entire world was flipped upside down as Leliana rolled on top of her.

 _“Oof_ ,” Aine said, the breath knocked out of her by the force of Leliana’s roll. Her head spun as she looked up at the shorter woman, now straddling her hips. “What—you—”

“Have you really not played the Game in so long?” Leliana grinned mischievously. “My lady, I regret to inform you that _I_ win.”

The only thing Aine could do, for the moment, was sputter.

“Tsk, tsk. What would those who educated you in Orlais say?”

Aine laughed, but at herself this time. “Maker’s breath,” she said, shaking her head. “I should have known.”

“Yes, you should have. But you let your guard down.” She slid down until they were nearly chest to chest, one hand planted in the snow beside Aine’s head. “Not that I’m complaining,” she said softly.

Their lips had just met again when several figures came tromping through the snow; they separated, both their heads turning. “Aha!” Zevran said loudly as he crunched towards them, his scarf wrapped tightly around his neck. “I told you they were all right.”

“I was not worried,” Morrigan said loftily, peering at him with disdain. “ _You_ were the one who wanted to come find them. Now that we have, I’m sure I can imagine why.”

“To ensure they were unharmed, of course.” He sighed happily, looking at Leliana and Aine. “See? Didn’t I say this would be fun?”

Leliana and Aine exchanged a look. Leliana looked like she wanted very much to laugh, but Aine’s was the drier sort of humor and she was frowning. “Do you think maybe we should—”

“Oh, can we?” Leliana asked eagerly. 

“Yes, let’s.”

“What—” Zevran started, but several handfuls of snow, flung from the two women on the ground, effectively stopped whatever he’d been about to say. Some of it splattered Morrigan and she scowled at them, throwing some in return. A quick, brutal snow fight broke out with three sides against each other, but by the end of it, Morrigan had defected to their side and Zevran was covered from head to toe.

“How much fun is it now, Zev?” Aine called, as he tramped back up the hill, still shaking snow out of his hair and ears.

To her surprise, he laughed. “Never dull, my dear Warden, never dull!”

Morrigan rolled her eyes. “Does nothing dampen that foul elf’s mood?”

“Probably not,” Aine said. Leliana helped her to her feet and together, the three of them began the long trek back to camp as well. Wynne and Sten, who had been hunting and gathering for the afternoon, would surely be back soon and it would be time for them to eat, pack up their gear, and move on. They would be at the village of Haven any day now.

As they were passing, Alistair stirred from where he had been napping in the sun. He yawned, stretching, sitting up and staring after them. He frowned, his golden hair mussed to the high heavens. “What was all the yelling? And why are you three all wet?” 

Morrigan’s expression, a mixture of both disbelief and derision, was something Aine wanted to remember for the rest of her life. She had truly outdone herself in her contempt for Alistair. Making a disgusted noise, she shook her head and stomped away.

Aine looked at Leliana—and they both burst out laughing.

“What?” Alistair asked as they walked away, still laughing. “What did I miss?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 2015 is all about the poly initiative  
> aka my cousland loves both leliana and alistair  
> (ღ˘⌣˘ღ)


	16. rainbow road

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> i'm up so early for school stuff omg  
> so here, have this and maybe also another one later because this one is super short

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> day sixteen: making cookies  
> cullen/rhiannon lavellan; modern au connected to all the others!

Rhiannon was _done_.

She had wrapped all the gifts, put up the remaining lights, and had purchased her yule log. She had scores of candles, so many sprigs of holly that she didn't know what to do with them, and tinsel for days. She had cleaned the entire apartment, bought all the food they would need, plus alcohol, and she’d filled the stockings. She was a veritable fucking Santa Claus in her own right. 

So when Cullen came home from his trip to the post office to send out the last of the Christmas cards, he found her laying on the floor of the living room, playing Mario Kart.

“This looks productive,” he said, shucking his scarf and coat.

“I’m done!” she shouted, holding up the controller and kicking her legs up in the air. “I finished everything, are you proud?”

He opened his mouth to reply, but frowned instead. He sniffed. “Is something… _burning_?”

She paused mid-kicking motion. Her character, Luigi, ran off the race course. Princess Peach and Yoshi went zooming past. “ _Ffffffuck_ ,” she said.

“You forgot about the cookies?”

“I forgot about the cookies.”

He held out a hand. “Give it.”

Rhiannon jumped up and handed him the controller. He took her place on the floor, sitting cross-legged, as she ran to the kitchen.

She didn't make it in time. _They_ didn’t make it at all. Blackened to a crisp, they were absolutely ruined, little husks of what could have been. Rhiannon sighed as she tossed them into the trashcan. She slipped the cookie sheets into the dishwasher and put her boots on, resigned to her fate as she walked to the coatrack next to the door.

“Going out?” Cullen asked, the picture of innocence. 

“Buying cookies,” Rhiannon said, rolling her eyes. “Don’t tell your parents.”

“Not a word. Mum likes oatmeal.”

“Great.” She wrapped her scarf around her neck three times, shoving her fingers into her gloves. “Cullen?”

“Yeah?”

“When I get back, you and me, Rainbow Road.”

His laughter chased her out into the winter landscape of December and she managed a smile as she walked to the bus stop. When she returned, she would savor the victory of _finally_ finishing her to-do list _and_ beating Cullen at Mario Kart.

Cookies included.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> my lavellan is basically a trash disaster and that's why i love her :)


	17. game of dragons

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> two in one day, yay :)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> day seventeen: new holiday traditions  
> blackwall/sorcha trevelyan; modern au, connected to the others :D

Sorcha had just hung up with her grandmother when Blackwall came into the living room.

“Everything all right?”

“No,” Sorcha growled. “Not only does my grandmother want us to fly all the way out there, but she wants us to stop and pick up my cousins on the way. Unbelievable. So we just had it out right now.” She tossed the phone onto the coffee table, watching as it clattered into a box of tissues. She flopped back on the couch with an arm over her eyes. “You know what I want?”

He lifted her legs, sitting on the couch and letting them rest on his knees. She could feel him unlacing her boots. “What?”

“I want a Christmas where we do what _we_ want to do. Where we aren’t always making plans with my _insane_ family. Where you and I can be totally and completely alone without the scrutiny and the gossip and the backstabbing. Every Trevelyan holiday is like an episode of _Game of Thrones_.”

Blackwall chuckled, tossing each of her boots to the floor with a solid _thump._ “I wouldn’t say they were _that_ bad.”

“You weren’t there the year my great-aunt Evelyn stabbed my grandfather. It may as well have been the Red Wedding.” With her other arm, Sorcha mimed stabbing someone in the air. “ _The Delacroix family sends their regards._ ”

He pulled off her socks next and she wiggled her bare toes in the warm air of their apartment. “So not an actual Trevelyan?”

“Nah. My grandmother’s crazy sister. They never did like my granddad very much.” Sorcha sighed, lips curving into a smile as Blackwall began massaging her feet. His hands, though calloused from his many years of manual labor, were warm and steady, applying just the right amount of pressure. His touch was heaven, and she felt as though she were melting into the couch.

“Mm, that feels nice,” she said, letting her eyes close. “I just want it to be the two of us. You know in our entire relationship, we’ve never once had a holiday alone? And I don’t even want to do anything for it. Most couples would want a vacation, but I just want to rest. I want to sleep in until the afternoon because we stayed up too late the night before, and I want to order Chinese from that one place that stays open and I want to just _relax_. No stress, no drama, just good food and movies and alcohol.” She smiled. “And you.”

“That sounds like the best idea you’ve had lately. And you usually have some pretty good ones.”

She wrinkled her nose. “Flatterer.”

“If that’s what you _really_ want, why don’t you tell them so?”

“Because…” Sorcha instantly deflated. “Well, I don’t know. They’re my family. I never really…go against what they say.”

“Not true.”

She lifted her arm, leaning up to look at him at the other end of the couch. “What do you mean?”

“They didn’t want you to move here, and they certainly didn’t want you with me. What did your grandmother call me? A ‘philandering old man’?”

“A ‘ _dirty_ philandering old man’. For some reason, she was really hung up on that whole philandering thing. She seems to think you won’t marry me, you’ll just leave me _ruined_.” Sorcha threw her arm back over her head, dramatically laying back against the couch.

“Well, she’s wrong on both counts. I’d marry you in a heartbeat, and you could never be ruined. Trust me.”

Sorcha grinned. “See, this is why I like having you around.”

“The point I’m trying to make here is that you _are_ capable of standing up to them—to her. You just don’t like to.”

“Of course I don’t. She’s terrifying. I’d rather have a heart-to-heart with a giant squid.”

“You’d probably get the same reaction. A lot of shrieking and waving of tentacles.”

Sorcha laughed. He’d stopped massaging her feet, but she liked the feeling of him holding them there, one hand wrapped loosely around her ankle, all the same. He was grounding, an anchor keeping her firmly in place where she might otherwise have wavered.

“I love you,” she said suddenly. It had taken her so long to say it that even now it surprised her how she could feel it all at once, so overwhelmingly, that it just burst out.  “Like…a lot.”

He smiled, his vivid blue eyes glimmering softly. “I know.”

He scooted forward to the edge of the couch, still holding her ankle. He leaned forward, reaching for the phone on the coffee table and handing it to her.

“Ugh. Why are you always right?”

“I’m not. But this is what you want to do. You said so yourself.”

“Oh, all right.” She punched in the numbers for her cousin Mona. It rang twice before that familiar shrill voice shot straight into Sorcha’s ear.

“Yeah?”

“I’m not going to be able to pick you up for Christmas. You or Osher.”

Her voice got even shriller, something Sorcha never imagined was possible. “What? Why?”

“I have…” She looked at Blackwall; he was spinning his finger in the air, encouraging her to keep going. “…plans.”

“ _Plans_? To do what?”

“That’s none of your business.” Sorcha sat up, taking a deep breath, grounding herself. “The fact is, I had plans this year with other people and Gram didn’t ask me, she just assumed I didn’t. So I’m sorry, but you’re going to have to find some other way to get there.”

“Are you _stupid_? I have. No. Car. Didn’t Grandmama tell you that I’m getting divorced? I swear, you are the absolute worst sometimes. Are you doing this just to punish me?”

“No.”  _Not really, anyway._

"Can’t you just cancel your plans?”

“No, I can’t. Don’t forget to tell Osher, please. And Mona?”

“What?” she snapped.

“Happy holidays.” She hung up quickly, throwing the phone away like it was a rather large spider. 

Blackwall roared with laughter as soon as she was off the line and she buried her face in one of the throw pillows, laughing equally hard. “I can’t believe I just said that,” she gasped, her dark hair falling in her face as she raised her head. “She’s _so_ mad at me.”

“Good, let her be." His grip tightened comfortably around her ankle. "You deserve time to yourself, away from them. They may be your family, but you don’t owe them anything. Understood?”

Sorcha nodded. She reached for the phone, dragging it back into her lap. Just one more person to call, then. Mona had been practice, to prove to herself that she could do it, but her grandmother was an entirely different story.

She dialed the numbers before she could stop herself. She sucked in a breath on the second ring, steeling herself.

“Evelyn, how are you, darling?”

“Hi Gram. It’s Sorcha.”

“Yes, I know. What do you need?”

Sorcha rolled her eyes. If there was one thing she could always count on, it was her grandmother’s insistence that she be called the _name she was born with_ —even though Sorcha hated it, and would never forgive her parents for naming her after her least-favorite relative. She thought of the stabbing story again. _Game of Thrones has_ nothing _on us_.

That thought alone made her falter. “Um.”

“Yes?”

Blackwall released her ankle. She drew her legs up under herself and he moved closer to her, taking her hand. He squeezed gently.

She let out a breath, saying in a rush, " _I'mnotgoingtomakeitfortheholidaysthisyear._ "

Silence. All-encompassing, deafening silence. 

Then, finally: "I see."

Sorcha squeezed her eyes shut tight, biting her lip. Her grandmother had that  _Tone_ , and Sorcha felt like she'd been slapped. Before any of the rambling apologies could come pouring out, before she could immediately take it back and vow that they'd be there with the now-husbandless Mona and her brother in tow, Blackwall snatched the phone out of her hand. 

"Berenice? Yeah, hi. It's Blackwall." He made a face like he'd just tasted sour milk. "Uh-huh. Well, the fact is, we already made plans. So it's just not going to happen this year." His glance slid towards Sorcha. "Will we make it for New Years...?" 

She shook her head emphatically. 

"We're not sure, we'll try. I know, but that's all I can tell you right now. Okay." He held out the phone, one hand covering the speaker. "She wants to talk to you again. You good?"

Sorcha nodded. Blackwall taking the phone from her had given her the moment to breathe, and she was ready to finish this. She held the phone back up to her ear. "Gram?"

"You might've said something if you had plans," she said, her voice higher. "Now what's Mona going to do? And Osher? You know she has no car, she's getting divorced, Evelyn. And what about all of the children, they wanted so much to see you. You're going to be breaking their little hearts. You _are_ going to send along gifts for everyone then, aren't you?" She sighed dramatically, not waiting for an answer. "I just don't understand, Sorcha. What plans can't be remade? Why did you wait until now to tell me? Now we have to shuffle around where everyone's going to stay, who's bringing what to the feast, and—"

Sorcha could feel her eyes crossing. Blackwall must've seen it, too, because just like that, he plucked the phone out of her grip once again and hung it up with a decisive  _beep_. 

Sorcha stared at him, open-mouthed. "What—did you just—"

"Hang up on your grandmother?" Blackwall chuckled. "Yeah, I did."

"I cannot believe you just did that." She looked up at him, shaking her head. "I am so in love with you right now. Marry me."

"Only if she's not invited," he said, making a face. 

"Of course, never," Sorcha said, flinging herself at him happily. Blackwall dropped the phone and, miraculously, for a time, the family drama was forgotten. 

* * *

On Christmas, despite Sorcha’s grand plans for their solitary holiday, both of them still woke at dawn. “Damn it,” she said, wide-awake, wrapping an arm around the thick bicep Blackwall had wound across her chest. “I hate us. We are the worst. Why do we have to be such early-risers?”

He chuckled, his voice rusty with sleep. “Just because we wake up early doesn’t mean we have to get up.”

She felt his lips at her neck, his beard tickling her ear, and she suddenly had a renewed love for the holiday. “ _Oh_. You’re right. We can stay in bed _all morning_.”

“Mm-hm. All day, if we want. We have this entire holiday to ourselves.” He kissed her again, lips lingering on her skin. “No parties to go to, nobody to see…”

“Why didn’t we think about this before?” Sorcha laughed, rolling over to face him. “Best new tradition ever.” 


End file.
